Honour Thy Father
by Kerjen
Summary: The Doctor popped in frequently in the Ponds' life before the tragic events in Manhattan, but where was River through it all? It all comes down to Jack and Martha arriving on Father's Day during Power of Three where Amy and Rory have taken Brian and Augustus out to celebrate. Covering all episodes as well as prequels, the last 2 Christmas Specials, and PS.
1. Chapter 1: Father's Day

Chapter 1 Father's Day

Rory glanced around the pub while Brian and Augustus nattered on about a mutual acquaintance. A good number of people filled the place and their voices rose and fell with the glasses clinking and the bottles being set down on wood. A healthy slice of the patrons were there for the same reason as he and Amy: they were taking their dads out for Father's Day. It was exactly what their fathers had asked for: to have some quiet time to talk with their children and enjoy the day, with plans to meet Tabitha Pond later and have a proper meal, the whole family, together.

Just another day in Leadworth. He liked that.

The two people walking into the pub let in the warm fresh air and the fading light of a summer's dusk. They swept people's attention their way including his. You knew just by looking at them that they were from outside of the small town; you would remember them if you had seen them before tonight.

The woman with warm, brown colouring glanced at the taller man with white skin, dark hair, and wearing a messenger bag across a long sleeved blue shirt, despite it being summer. They found him as soon as they came in the door and headed straight across the room. Rory didn't like that, especially with Amy and her father closer to the strangers.

Brian muttered, "Now, what's this about?"

Amy and Augustus turned in their seats to see what was the fuss and the strangers turned on bright smiles. Rory had seen some bad, bad people smile like that and not mean it. He put his hand on the back of his wife's chair and already had figured out which way they should run.

"Hello," the woman said, her voice as light as her smile, and made all the brighter against her lovely skin and upswept, straight black hair. Her light coloured, short waisted blouse framed her face at the collar. "Sorry to interrupt your evening. My name is Martha Jones, and this is my friend, Captain Jack Harkness."

Harkness held out a hand to Rory first while his eyes went up and down his body, then Amy's as he turned to her. He nodded to their fathers.

"We're here on behalf of UNIT," Martha was saying and pulled an ID from her jacket. She laid it on the table for all of them to read.

"It's a real ID," Jack suddenly spoke as his smile turned into a grin. "Not psychic paper."

Rory's eyes locked on to Amy's.

"What's this about?" she asked. "Is it because of the cubes?" She had to keep her head at a clearly uncomfortable angle to keep the two of them in sight. That and the reference to the Doctor put an edge to her voice.

Martha only smiled warmly. "No, not about them," although she glanced at the little boxes on their table. She nodded at Brian's defensive statement that he was watching them. "It's nothing bad. We're here... actually because it's Father's Day." She moved around behind Rory to be on his other side.

"We were asked us to deliver these." Harkness pulled out a red leather bound book, checked the cover, and handed it to Martha before pulling out a second one which he kept.

"The government has you handing out Father's Day cards?" Rory asked.

Jack shrugged. "No, it's more of a favour to someone. We're happy to do it."

"These are special," Martha added.

She clasped the book in front of her body and Rory was suddenly reminded of his graduation from uni. "Rory Williams, on behalf of the entire planet, UNIT wishes to thank you for your service in keeping this world safe. That's on top of the numerous people you have helped in the universe. This book is a record of all you have done so far, starting with the lives you helped save in your medical career."

His mouth parted, but he had no idea what to say. Brian blinked his blue eyes rapidly as his mouth pressed against emotion as he watched his son.

"Because today has a special nature, I present this book," she turned to Brian, "to your father. Mr. Williams, we don't just thank our dads today for everything they do for us. We recognize how much they help us to be who we are throughout our lives. After all, where would we be without you? So, please accept this record of the man your son is because of you. Happy Father's Day, sir."

Brian took the book and held it reverently. He kept his emotions quiet, but they clearly overpowered any ability he had to express them. He could only give her a little nod.

Those words – Where would we be without you – sounded so familiar as Rory watched his dad take a deep breath and finally say simply, "Thank you, my dear."

"That makes it my turn." Jack smiled down on Amy and Augustus. "And my real honour. Mr. Pond, let me start by apologizing to your beloved Scotland, because I am going to try speaking Gaelic. Your homeland has a saying: _Fear gu aois, is bean gu bàs_. And you, sir, are the father who brought about this exceptional daughter."

Augustus took a second to get to his feet and then shook Jack's hand in both of his. His brogue grew thicker with feeling, just as Amy's always did. "I haven't heard that expression since me Gran. You said it well, lad. Thank ye."

Rory whispered to Amy, "What did he say?"

"No idea," she whispered. "They never taught me Gaelic. Obviously something about how wonderful his daughter is."

Jack overheard them and winked. "Something about daughters anyway."

Martha smiled. "We won't interrupt your night any further – except for me to say one more thing." She looked down at Rory. "It's actually Doctor Martha Jones, and Nurse Williams, please let me know if I could ever steal you away from Leadworth. It'd be a real pleasure to work with you."

He stood up and took her offered hand. "Thank you," he answered. He choose this career to draw some of Amy's Raggedy Doctor focus his way, but he found a real love for his work. Hearing Martha Jones' recognition made him feel all over again just how right his choice had been.

Augustus said, "Sit down, please, you came all this way. We can't just send ye packing for the long trip back without a spot of something first."

"Thanks, Mr. Pond, but Jack has a shortcut home."

He obliged Martha by holding up his left arm and the open cuff of his shirt sleeve fell away from a vortex manipulator. "We'll be back literally before they know we left. Well, close to it."

She and Jack made their goodbyes with Harkness adding a kiss on Amy's hand and saluting Rory in the ancient Roman style of a fist to the chest.

"Just how accurate is this book, yeah?" Amy whispered to her husband.

He looked into Jack's eyes and recognized someone else who had seen the sun rise and set over thousands of years, far more than even the Doctor had seen. Harkness gave the barest smile and Rory gave back the barest nod.

Jack exclaimed, "Time we go. Unless I can talk you away from your husband, Dr. Jones." He held out his arm to her as she laughed and took it as they walked out.

Augustus exclaimed, "Churchill!" and looked wide-eyed at his daughter while Rory picked up the unmistakable crackle of a vortex manipulator being used outside.

She smiled back at her father, blue eyes to his brown. "Churchill."

He took her hand in his and didn't let go, no matter how awkward it was holding the book and turning the pages with his other hand. Rory smiled at his wife, even though she was busy holding on to her father, when he felt a hand clap on to his shoulder.

"Rory." Brian's eyes were wet. Apparently, _not_ being a cool Dad was something hereditary.

Don't think about that, he told himself.

"Hello! What's this?" The Doctor suddenly appeared with all the subtly of a tornado and dropped into an empty chair at the next table. He scooched it across the floor and talked loudly over the scraping sound, causing everyone who had just gone back to their own business to turn back around. "New books? Love a new book! What's it about?"

Augustus looked nonplussed at the Doctor's abrupt and boisterous arrival, but as it scored several levels down from 'Imaginary Friend turned real at your daughter's wedding', he managed to say after a beat, "It's about Amelia and all the things she's done in her travels."

"_Really?_ Let's have a peek, thank you! So! Life of Amelia Pond!"

"You didn't have anything to do with this?"

"No, no, not me, Senior Pond. Surprised as anyone, brilliant idea though, oh and look! The other Senior Pond has a copy!"

"Williams," Rory and Brian corrected. "And this one is about Rory," Brian finished.

"Is it? It is! So everyone's got a book? Yeah, well..." the Doctor sniffed. "Could have made one about me. I was there, you know."

Augustus squeezed Amy's hand while his other arm lay across a drawing of Nefertiti in her book. "You know who'd love this? Mels."

It was such a cliche, but Rory stiffened at the name and then swallowed at the flood of what hearing it brought back.

"Wouldn't she though?" Brian echoed. "Poor girl."

Augustus cleared his throat when he noticed the Doctor listening. "She was a friend of Amelia and Rory's."

"More than a friend," Brian said.

"That she was, Brian. Family – she was family, our Mels. Our Melody."

The alcohol rumbled in Rory's stomach, making him hot and sick. He pulled over the bowl of crisps but only picked at them.

_Took me years to find you two. I'm so glad I did. And, you see, it all worked out in the end, didn't it?_

He didn't look at Amy. He couldn't and the Doctor stopped leafing through the pages and instead brought the book up to cover his face.

"Wait, I'll show you a picture." Augustus took out his wallet and removed a photo that he handed to the Doctor. "That's her in the middle. Actually, you've probably seen this already. Amelia has the same one on the mantle. Not to mention all the ones in that bedroom you're using."

"Um," Amy hesitated. "Not anymore."

"Really. I thought I saw it."

"I took it down," she said in a rush. "Same with the ones in – the guest room. Just felt I needed to put them away."

Not guest room, Rory's mind automatically corrected. _River's_ room. At least it used to be. Now it was the Doctor's room, but if it wasn't his... well, if it wasn't for – Amy stripped out everything that was River's when – when it became just the guest room.

He used to have that same picture in his wallet as well as ones with he, Amy, and River. He _used_ to have them.

His father-in-law obviously thought Amy took them down because of Mels being gone. "Of course, dear."

"Brilliant girl," Brian said, smiling at his memories. "Simply rubbish at school because she hated it, but what she could make sense of! She'd probably even surprise you, Doctor."

A grin tugged at the Time Lord's mouth.

"Rory noticed it first or we may never have seen it – I mean, his Mum and I. But then, nobody looked after Mels more than these two did."

Rory flinched and put his eyes back down on his hands gripping his glass.

"– she'd pull all these books from the library or from the computer. Or she'd watch shows that made my eyes cross."

"History," Augustus listed, "science, technology, I don't know what else. Devoured it, that's the best way to explain it."

Brian continued. "My wife asked her to explain some theory, I don't remember what all, but it made sense when Mels told it. She drew it all out on a piece of paper and my wife took that to her Home – she was from the Children's Home here – and told them 'You got to give this girl challenges. She's bored here, that's a big part of her troubles'."

"Dad," Rory started.

The hand Augustus didn't use to hold Amy's jabbed at the table. "Those people running the place, supposedly from the Church – did they listen? No! Made it so she hid it, like it was shameful. I caught her on the computer once and she switched away from whatever she was looking at... well, what was I to think? I didn't want to embarrass her, but really, you can't allow that. So I asked Amelia about it." He chuckled. "Although with the way you attacked her, Amelia, maybe I _should_ have done it. Launched herself at the girl shouting, 'Oi! What are you looking at!' It would have made Tabitha proud. Shoved Mels from the computer and here she was only looking at something about physics and some space matter. You should have seen the teen fit aimed at me then. Rolling her eyes and complaining how _I_ made a fuss over Mels and her weird interests for nothing." He laughed in his drink.

Mels... Melody.

In all her brilliance. Not just her mind, but that bright force of life that orbited he and Amy in a blaze that hid so much. Not from her own choice, though. The pain that she buried leaked out rarely, when it peered through the cracks like the old one in Amy's wall. A flash of expression. A nightmare that she couldn't escape when she slept.

Then, on the opposite end, the boundless love for them that she expressed in sudden hugs or laying her head against a shoulder.

When Amy said she had named their baby Melody, his head had jerked up in short lived surprise because it was Mels. Of course their daughter would be Melody.

Then the nightmare of Berlin and Mels trying one last time to hide the pain as her life bled out over his hands as he tried, he _tried_, to save her.

Melody, Mels, River... and the stranger in her body who spoke first in the cornfield and later again in Hitler's office until the cracks appeared in her conditioning. Then the real Melody, lost Melody, _their_ Melody and the start of River reached out just a bit, still crying _Help me!_ but silently now with only her eyes. Until she collapsed in a blaze of golden light.

Every bit of protectiveness he had ever felt for Mels – and Mels had needed protecting, even from herself – married with every ounce of paternal feeling he had since he heard Amy was pregnant. He sat by his daughter's side in the Sisters' hospital, taking each breath with her and begging silently as every parent does. _Please. Please let her wake up. Let me take her place. I'll be the one in the bed, give me this. Not her. Please._ He and Amy each holding a hand tight as if by their will alone, they would be anchors preventing their daughter from being dragged out of this life into oblivion. _Turn me back to plastic if that's what it takes. Tell me I have to watch over her for another two thousand years, I don't care. I'll sit here with her. Only don't take her away again._

Then he came home one day to the new house the Doctor had bought for them and there she was. Standing in the road in jeans and a jumper, hugging herself, and...

Trembling. Her voice so small. "Hello." And before he could do anything, "I didn't know if you ever wanted to see me again."

He grabbed her up and hugged her as she clung to him. "_Dad_."

Brian cut into Rory's memories. "Lot about her that was broken, poor girl."

Rory sipped at his pint for want of something to do and stared at nothing in front of him.

"She did what she could," Brian continued. "Hopefully we helped."

The Doctor suddenly jammed his nose into the spine of the book. "UNIT didn't make these." He rubbed a page between his fingers and _loudly_ sniffed along its entire length.

If he licks it, Rory thought, I'll hit him.

Thankfully the Doctor didn't do that. He flipped through the book rapidly until he came to the back cover. "Ah ha. See. Told you. Look right here." He held it up excitedly to each them. "See the emblem?"

"That bump by your finger?" Amy asked.

"Not a bump, Pond. An emblem. Gallifreyan. She made it small, but it's hers."

Rory leaned over to get a better look and saw the little symbol for himself. It was amazingly detailed despite its size, swirling and blazing up through the red cover. Definitely Gallifreyan, although he had no idea what it said.

"Knew she had to be involved," the Doctor finished.

"Who?" Brian asked. Rory would never have said it out loud. He was too afraid of the answer.

"The Tardis, naturally." He let out a breath of relief at the Doctor's answer. "Figured she made these. Who else could gather this information on you. Too detailed for anyone else to have."

"Wait." Amy leaned across the table. "UNIT asked the Tardis to make these books?"

"No, it couldn't be them. Come on, Pond, how would they get into the Tardis to even ask her?"

"But this Martha and Jack said –"

The Doctor looked up quickly. "Martha and Jack?"

"Yeah. They said they were with UNIT. He had a vortex manipulator."

The Time Lord whipped out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the air, flipping it with long experience to get the readout. "Yes. Of course. Not his," he mumbled. "She must have lent him hers."

Rory went back to being afraid of the answer.

"Hello! Back to your business," the Doctor said in his best friendly way to the other patrons. The sonic had drawn everyone's attention to their table again. "Plenty to be awed about, sonic screwdriver and all, but private goings on. Thank you!"

"What's not his?" Amy insisted. "The book?"

"No, the vortex manipulator. The signature is all wrong for Jack's. Besides," he muttered to himself again, "I'm pretty sure I left his off."

Augustus' face was screwed up in confusion as he tried to figure out anything that they were discussing. "You mean that strap he had on?"

"Yes, yes. Cheap time travel. Well," the Doctor darted glances between Rory and Amy. "Depending on who's using it."

They didn't ask who. They didn't need to ask.

Brian's expression was as confused as Amy's father's. "So who made the books then?"

Rory looked away, saw some of his neighbours still glancing in their direction, and turned his head again in an attempt to find a spot where he would avoid everyone else's gaze. The Tardis would have helped only one other person besides the Doctor.

"An old friend," the Time Lord answered.

"They said it was a personal favour," Brian kept on.

"She probably called in a few favours to get them delivered. Or she owes Martha and Jack a favour now." Something burst across The Doctor's face, and he suddenly crossed his arms and legs as his minimal eyebrows snapped into a scowl. "Don't like the idea much, her owing Jack a favour."

Rory thought about that look Jack had passed up and down Amy's body. His grip tightened on his glass. He didn't like River owing Harkness a favour either.

Augustus picked up the book the Doctor had put down. "Awfully nice of your friend to do this. I wonder why they didn't just say it was from her."

For the same reason she hadn't made one for Rory when she would have on any other Father's Day. For the same reason she hid that she had the Tardis print them - and the Tardis made sure the Doctor knew anyway.

Because of us, Rory thought. We made her do it. Only because the pain-

"You punched _Hitler?_" Brian stared at him over his Father's Day book.

Rory blinked at the sudden noise. "Well... yeah – he deserved it."

"Hitler?" Augustus exclaimed.

"Hitler." He reached over to his father. "Dad, let me see that book for a minute."

He flipped it to the beginning where Dr. Jones said his nursing records were listed. The name he looked for shouldn't be there since they said it was lives he had saved and Louis Baker had died. But there it was with a note from his widow: _Thank you for giving us what we needed. I know we asked for something unusual, but you made all the difference by giving it to us._

He didn't actually give them anything. River had. It was the kind of thing that would have been in his Father's Day book if he hadn't –

"Son?"

Rory had to swallow before he looked up at his father. Brian put a hand on his wrist.

"I'm proud of you, Rory. You're a hero."

_Melody Pond is a superhero_.

He thought of the last thing he had said to his daughter. "No, I'm not."

Brian clapped him on the shoulder, mistaking what he said for humility.

Things were going better on the Pond side of the table. "Amelia, am I reading this right. A _whale_? Carrying everybody on its back?"

She sat right next to him with her arms flung around him and laughed with delight. "It did! It was amazing, Dad. Starship UK. Guess what the Scots did. Insisted on their own ship."

"Good for them."

"I know. It's what I said." She turned a few pages and pointed out something for him to read. She watched his face for his reaction and smiled all over when he pulled her hand to his chest and patted it proudly.

"Wait until your mother sees this."

"This one will be her favourite." She flipped further into the book. "That's what I'm guessing."

Amy so loved the new life she had with the parents she loved deeply, so it always amazed Rory that her personality and everything she was remained frozen in the persona from growing up with her Aunt Sharon. It was like once that Amelia Pond happened, that's who she was permanently. Her time had been rewritten, but she hadn't.

So here she was showing off for her dad. Like River taking them to a world that had been declared dead for a millennium, but whose energy was dormant with its secret written in its ancient ruins that had been mistranslated. Until one archaeologist who could see the workings of Time saw the real translation and brought her parents to see it reborn.

He and Amy had reveled in being introduced, "This is my Mother and Dad," and being able to openly brag about their daughter to people who were nearly genuflecting in front of her. He told Amy that if her telling someone "That's my daughter!" ("_Our_ daughter!" he kept correcting) was a drinking game, he'd be good and sloshed. She retaliated that his stupid face did look squiffy from pushing his chest out when people asked if he was River Song's father. And she was right: he had grabbed River and held her tight in a cloud of being chuffed about it all. What a great day it had been.

But Brian was talking to the Doctor and it burst that cloud with the reality of now. "Augustus and I went down to the Home to talk to her guardians. I think that's what they're called. The people in charge down there."

"When are you going to give this girl some guidance? That's what we said," Augustus spat. "She's eighteen. Doesn't mean she doesn't need a guiding hand. Where are you for her? You'd think they didn't care, and yet, did they ever let anyone else take her? No. And we tried. All the other kids in there are coming and going, but Mels? You'd think they owned her."

They had. More than he and Amy had ever guessed. After all, Mels at all ages had so clearly owned herself. So did River. How could anyone imagine how far from the truth that was? They found out though, when he had brought her inside from the street, telling her that of course he wanted to see her, that he would always want to see her.

"Ferociously loyal!" Augustus exclaimed in answer to something Rory had missed. "That's how I'd describe it, Doctor. And protective! Why one day, my Tabitha had a tussle with a shop owner. The insults that woman said to her. Not that Tabitha didn't hold her own, but Mels overheard her tell me about it. She marched down to that shop and set the town buzzing over what she did." He leaned forward. "And not in the way you think. She went outside the shop and just sat on the bench there, looking through the main window. Didn't move for hours and whenever Beatrice looked up – Beatrice is the shop owner – Mels would just give that grin of hers. It was a wicked grin, but it's all she did. Sat there, looking in, watching, and then flashing that grin. Drove Bea crazy, but what could she do about it? Can't arrest somebody for sitting on a public bench, although she did call the coppers and got nothing for it. By the end of the day, Bea was on the phone to Tabitha with an apology." He shook his head and grinned as his whole face glowed with pride.

So did Brian's. "Do you know that old Mike down at Halls' DIY was telling some farce about me and before I could remember better, I thought wait until Mels hears about this."

The Doctor was smiling to himself, his eyes far away. "I met your Mels," he said.

Rory froze. What could he possibly say about Berlin?

The Time Lord glanced at Augustus from the corners of his eyes and the closed smile still took up his whole face. "She said she wanted to marry me."

"Of course, the wedding day of the Raggedy Doctor! Forgot that one. Mels married the Doctor - there's a thought. To be truthful, I still wake up some mornings surprised you exist." The elder Pond added, "No offense."

"None taken. I'm surprised when I wake up as me too. Some days."

"Well. Um... well, I'm glad you got to meet her anyway."

"She was hard to miss." The Doctor's smile changed to a grin, open and laughing. "Drove up in a Corvette and did a spin up to the Tardis."

Now Rory grinned, despite himself, since that time in the cornfield wasn't a happy one. Maybe the Doctor's mood was just infectious, but all he could think about in that minute was how many times he and Mels had poured over mags, arguing over which one of them was right about the better cars.

Brian chuckled and slapped the Doctor on the arm. "I think your friend – the one who left the bag of tools about. She might have a problem with you marrying somebody else." He looked over at Augustus. "Saw him trip over this bag that a woman – what did you say she was again?"

The Doctor's smile didn't change much from when he had talked about Mels marrying him, although he did touch his bowtie. Of course, he always touched his bowtie – but, they were talking about River and marriage and it _was_ his bowtie. His smile was still filled with not just humour, but something else, something private, as he thought about his: "Archaeologist."

_I consent and gladly give._

"Yes! Archaeologist! I'd like to meet her. I bet she carries a trowel," he remarked in aside to Rory.

His son made a face at that, but he could guess that some force in the universe enjoyed that River Song had a grandfather who took on a pterodactyl with a trowel. He could just imagine the comments the two of them would have made about it if they had ever got together.

"You should have seen him go on, Augustus. Shouting about her leaving her things wherever she pleased on _his_ ship. Complaining about 'that woman' taking over one of his labs for herself, not to mention his library and the rest of the place."

Augustus smirked. "He's right, mate. You're married. If you're not, you'd better plan on asking her and soon, 'cause she's your wife. Judging by that look on your face, ye know it too."

"Yeah, well..." The Doctor came away from his memories, small smile still in place, to glance over at Augustus. "Certainly a popular Pond opinion I've heard before anyway."

Amy shot him a look that warned him away from that topic.

A picture of him as the Lone Centurion was suddenly held up in front of Rory's face. "Why are you dressed like a Roman soldier here?" Brian asked. "Did you go to Rome?"

"Yes and no, Dad. It's kind of complicated."

"After the things I've learned around him," Brian's head indicated the Doctor, "nothing is complicated. It looks like that fancy dress party you went to with Amy."

Rory caught his reflection in the darkened window and was startled by the look of a child's exasperation with a parent. That by itself didn't surprise him. He loved his dad, he wanted only the best for him and he'd do whatever he could to make that happen. But honestly, the man could really.. drive him mad.

But Mels used to make the same face. About him. That was the surprising bit.

He didn't get it. It wasn't like he was his father. Yes, he gave his dad credit. Who would have thought that the mild man from Leadworth could handle news about a face changing, centuries old alien that traveled in time and space? Not only running around spaceships and facing more aliens and life and death situations, but becoming a better man because of it? But honestly-

He caught Amy giving a small laugh as she watched Brian read his Father's Day book. "What?"

"Look at everyone in the pub. Know what they're thinking? They're thinking, who would have thought it, yeah? Rory Williams of Leadworth, stepping on board a spaceship? But look at you. You did all those things in your dad's book. You became the Last Centurion."

Oh hell.

He was his dad.

Brian handled the news about the Doctor and everything about his son's time twisted life. Had an ancient time ship materialize around him, found himself in outer space, was shot by a robot, rode a dinosaur, piloted a spaceship - and thrived from the experience. Became a globe trotter, a traveler, and a new person. Like him. Tempered into the men they were now because they had learned and experienced life far beyond their initial boundaries.

He still could have done without his dad's _Only my balls_ comment when the Doctor asked what he had in his trousers that drew a triceratop.

Still, forged by incredible experiences, like this picture that his dad studied - spending over two thousand years as a plastic Roman soldier. It was all still there, locked in a place within his own mind even though he once denied it. He let it out only that one time to go after Amy and their baby. After that, he locked it all away again never to open that door. Except... for that day when the Centurion forced his way out. The day River appeared and held his sword in her hand.

No. No, no, no!

His back ached from being hunched over the pub's table for too long. He pushed back against the hard wood of his chair and glanced over at Amy. What was she thinking about? Where the same kind of memories going through her head? It didn't look like it; she focused on Augustus pick things out of her book, but Rory knew her better than that.

She never had problems with handling their daughter's out-of-order visits and had been the one to buy a diary to keep track of them. She would even call and demand a particular River, working around spoilers with snippets and phrases to younger versions.

"Come visit when the words professor and Byzantium mean something to you." That particular River had appeared after Amy hung up her mobile and the two of them went off to conspire together. He had not eavesdropped at all; he had just needed to put some of the shopping in the pantry (that they had done last week and had already been in the pantry before he removed it, so he could walk near where they whispered as he put it all back). It wasn't his fault he overheard them planning to take him to River's university to hear her lecture. Apparently, the scourge of Leadworth's school system became a noted professor at some point and, as Amy said, "You know he'd love seeing you up there. You could make up a lecture just for him. Rome. Do the Romans!"

"Is this for you or Dad, Mother?" River had teased.

"You know it would be perfect – you could introduce us to your students!"

"I thought this was so Dad could hear me lecture –"

"No, but think about it! It'd be brilliant! You either introduce us or I will introduce myself – loudly – and then tell them what a horror you were in school. Oh, imagine Rory's reaction to that! You can just picture him burying his face in his hands."

Rory left then so he could give a victorious "Yes!" in private since the trip was a surprise. He couldn't wait for his birthday and thought of the professors who had inspired him so he found his love for nursing. Now it was his little girl and her lecture hall where she set the pace in a major university in the _universe_.

He would sit there and listen as River commanded the room – he had no doubt of that. In fact, he pictured it clearly. Amy would be grinning and managing to manipulate their daughter from her seat by mouthing overly emphasized words and using sharp hand gestures until their daughter would shake her head and give in. "Ladies and Gentlemen," she would say even as she smirked and rolled her eyes with the fun and pride in the whole thing. "My Mum and Dad are here."

But then...

...they had found out about not having children (not having any _more_ children, some part of him insisted on correcting) before his birthday and the trip hadn't happened.

Augustus grumbled. "They turned down the adoption as quick as you please."

"Wait – what?!" Rory said at the same time Amy said something like, "What adoption!"

Augustus stared back at them "Didn't you know, Amelia? We didn't tell you at the time, because we wanted to be certain everything'd go through, but I thought you knew by now. Your mother and I put in to adopt Mels years ago. We did it first figuring we had you and you two were so close. She listened to you more than anybody."

Brian laughed "You were good at lecturing her. Even when you were barely more than knee high –"

"And in trouble!" Augustus added.

"And in trouble yourself. The sight of it. No wonder she called you Mum those times."

Rory's throat closed up. Mels' rebellious grin as Amy would lecture - and the day she thought she had finally gone too far with something she had done and surprised him when she grabbed his hand. She's scared, he had thought and couldn't think of what to do. So he did what his father would do without consciously thinking about it. He sat next to her, quiet and simply there, and held her hand, just as he would do later when she would show up on the doorstep and ask, "Will you talk to me?"

Amy practically yelled. "You were going to adopt Mels?"

"We were." Her father pulled her hand into both of his so he could pat it. "Amelia, she was already family." He kept looking back and forth between her eyes, not knowing why she was so upset.

Rory did. "Then why didn't you?"

Relieved, Augustus ran a hand across his bald pate and into what hair he had, sending it in different directions. "They turned us down. With no grounds whatsoever. We fought it, but they shut us down at every turn." He suddenly smiled. "Melody Pond."

Rory's heart clenched and he sat in shock, the same as Amy obviously since she stammered. "What?"

"Melody Pond – that would've been her name. Brilliant name, yeah?"

The Doctor smiled. "Brilliant," and pointedly kept his eyes away from his best friends.

Brian jumped in with, "So is Melody Williams. She was almost that too, remember."

"Wait, Dad, _you_ tried to adopt her?"

"We did. For the same reasons Augustus and Tabitha did, but we had the same results."

Rory didn't know how much more of this he could take.

"You think they bloody well owned her," Augustus repeated, disgusted. "Then you tell me why they did everything against her best interests if they couldn't bear not to have her. I never understood it."

Brian reached across the table and clapped a hand around the other man's arm. One grandfather to another, even though they didn't know it, and Rory wished he could talk to them about it.

He wasn't the man who first followed Amy on to the Tardis. That man needed advice on nearly everything. Even though he always had been the one to point out to the Doctor when things were going too far, he still needed the Time Lord to tell him a lot. But after living more millenia than the Doctor, he found their roles reversed. He was the older one with the greater experience in life, and the Doctor came to him plenty of times. He didn't have to let out the Centurion whenever he needed to call on that experience – it was just there – but even though he and Amy joked about their big kid, he constantly was turning a corner and finding himself slamming into a wall when it came to being the man someone called their father.

_River, River – Melody Pond... your daughter! I hope you're both proud!_

Yes, they were. Had been. No, were, they were proud ...weren't they?

_I know you're not alright. But hold tight, Amy, because you're going to be._

Amy was, but River... so many layers in her voice that had been hidden. Her voice had shook with more than fear of rejection and the weight of telling them who she was; even more than knowing she was headed into the time when they wouldn't know her.

More than all of that because it had been Demon's Run. The place that would make them reject her in a couple years: all the in utero procedures the Silence had done to make sure Melody Pond lived up to the potential the Tardis had started in her DNA. All those surgeries, all those measures to make sure their fully realized weapon was born had made Amy unable to have any children.

_You want kids. You have always wanted kids. Ever since you were a kid. And I can't have them. Whatever they did to me at Demons Run, I can't ever give you children._

Any _more_ children.

Just open your mouth and tell them, Rory pushed himself. Looked at Brian and he imagined how much his dad would love River. Grandfather and granddaughter traveling the world, trowels in hand. Or sitting back with a cup of tea discussing their thoughts as time flew by.

And Augustus and Tabitha, grandparents to another Pond. Back when – well, when things were good between them all, Amy had teased, "You can picture my Mum sitting across from River in the kitchen, can't you? Chattering on about 'Honestly, dear, how you haven't pushed that husband of yours out the door of that blue box, I have no idea!'"

But then what? Rory's smile faded as he thought of telling his dad and his father-in law, and then telling them they wouldn't see their granddaughter. Because he and Amy had told her to go away.

Brian lowered his hand from Augustus' arm. He picked up his glass again, but didn't drink from it and hunched over it instead. "It's too late for Mels, but some good came later. After she –" He took a beat to say it, like the word cut his tongue. " – after we lost her, someone else took over the Children's Home. Good people."

"Still don't know what those people were thinking," Augustus grumbled. "It's no wonder the girl went wild. It's like they wanted her to do it. I blame them for her getting killed in that accident."

Amy said too loudly, "Can we change the subject?"

Heads swung in their direction all around the pub and then very pointedly turned back like they never heard her. Brian and her father tripped over each other with apologizing. "Of course, Amelia." Her father tried putting an arm around her, but it looked like cuddling a rock.

He didn't move away; he wouldn't stop being there just because it got difficult or wasn't straightforward. That's what a father did, right?

Because as Rory had learned, it wasn't just about the baby and it wasn't just about Mels. It was about River. If she became the woman they first knew, if she would be the River who brought them to a reborn world, it was because of what they had to give her and teach her. They hadn't stopped growing when they were eighteen or first out of diapers or when they learned to ride bikes (which Rory had taught Mels to do). Neither had River.

"Parenthood does not stop at adulthood," someone had told them. It hadn't meant just Mels and their unknowing battle against the Silence's conditioning. It meant from the moment she showed up in the road outside their house, wondering if they would talk to her. River needed her parents. She always would.

She would only be the person she would become if they helped her.

'Where would I have been without you two?'

That was where he had first heard the words Martha Jones had used. Mels had said them in Berlin before she regenerated. After that, she was lost between Kovarian's Melody and the Doctor's River. She struggled with reclaiming Melody Pond and discovering River Song for herself without their foreknowledge, but with their hands solidly grasped in hers.

After Berlin and Utah, she needed the Dad who understood staring into the eyes of the person he loved when Amy didn't know him. The father who had been turned into a weapon as he begged _Run! You've got to run! I don't want to kill you!_ But the gun fires on its own anyway and the one loved most is falling to the ground...

Even their being alive after that didn't wipe out that moment.

And then giving up whatever life you might have had to protect them, for years, for centuries, no matter what it cost you.

His daughter needed him when those moments haunted her. Because she inherited it from him.

And for the same reasons every child needs their father at any age. To listen. To be there. To share with them. To let them know they're not alone. To be loved.

What was it Amy had promised Melody when she was a baby? Something about –

_There's a man who's never going to let us down_.

Yeah, well. That hadn't been true.

If only - damn, Demon's Run! If they hadn't linked River to what happened there. If they hadn't - blamed her. Or if they had dealt with it right away instead of avoiding it because the wounds were so fresh right after he and Amy were back together. Then it became something they would fix later, with a bit more time, until he automatically pushed it back in his head with a mental note of _soon_ every time it popped up. They didn't invite her to the anniversary party, didn't even talk about her, and he couldn't remember the last time they said her name out loud. Not even in Mercy where Amy had told him, "Jax guessed I was a mum."

He had been stunned. "Did you tell him about-"

"No." She rushed to cut him off. "No, I didn't. I said it wasn't straight forward." She scowled. "And he brushed it off with 'Life rarely is' like he knew about it."

Only this morning, he woke up and remembered _Father's Day_ with a happy burst of _River will be here_ that quickly became _Oh. Yeah. She won't._ and then he buried it.

His hand slammed down on the table. Startled heads turned towards him as the cubes spilled all over and he could tell from the bartender's face that they were very close to being put outside.

The Doctor didn't look at him. The Doctor stared into the air as if he knew. Maybe he did. He certainly knew what had happened with River... which made it really odd that-

Rory suddenly leaned across the table, spilling cubes. "Why haven't you-"

He looked between his father and father-in-law who stared at him. He slowly sat back in his chair. "Never mind."

He absentmindedly re-stacked the cubes. Why hadn't the Doctor interfered? He always interfered! So why hadn't he never tried to heal the rift between them and River, the way he had done when Amy wanted a divorce?

In fact, he went far the other way. He had left River out when he normally would have made sure she was there. A spaceship hurtled to Earth out of control: but the Doctor's team to save the day included an African game hunter and not River? River who figured out the Pandorica, who could build a beacon stretching through time and the universe? River the only other person who could pilot and understand the Tardis?

It made no sense at all.

Rory looked around the pub and listened to dads bragging about what their children were doing with their lives: what university they were attending, what job they had just gotten. All said with so much pride.

He always thought of what he and Amy had lost: lost their baby, lost their best friend.

What had Melody lost?

Them.

Over and over again, she lost them.

The first couple of times were Kovarian's fault. This last time?

His hands balled into fists and he clenched them until it hurt. He shouldn't have – the things they had said – and they never took them back...

He wanted his book. Oh how desperately he suddenly wanted his Father's Day book of all his daughter's accomplishments. He wanted to yell to everyone in the pub, _I have a daughter!_

She went to university. She got into a doctoral program and had her dissertation accepted. That alone was an incredible feat for anyone, but with the problems River had to overcome...

Other people got sick traveling with the vortex manipulator. Not his gave new life to a world when everyone else said it was dead. She saved the universe. She sacrificed everything – her freedom, her reputation, her name that they gave her, and the life she worked so hard to build for the person she loved. So that he could be safe.

She was going to be a professor. She made Daleks afraid. She gave a family the last minutes they had together, something she'd never have with her parents or her husband.

_His _daughter did all that and said she could do it because he was her father.

_I want my book! And I want it to say Love you, Dad! Because I never should have told her I didn't want her!_

Amy was staring at him as he rambled on in his head. He felt her eyes on him and finally looked over to meet them.

She had guessed what was going on with him. Of course she did and she tried a smile. "Maybe next year. Ok? Maybe it's time."

He took hold of her free hand. "Yeah."

"By next Father's Day, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Lorna Bucket had told Amy: _Your child will always come home to you._

And she did. Across the millenniums and the light years, through different names and faces, their Melody always found her way home to them.

_Took me years to find you two. I'm so glad I did._

Until they told her not to do it.


	2. Chapter 2: Excerpts from Rory's Book

Chapter 2 Excerpts from Rory's Book

Because, as Jack recited: _Fear gu aois, is bean gu bàs._

Translated_: A son is a son until he comes of age; a daughter is a daughter all her life._

**. . . . .**

The wails coming from inside the small white container hurt Rory as if it were Amy making them. He dropped to his knees and fumbled with the latches in his anxiousness to get it open. He felt like tearing the lid off - until he saw her face. That tiny, beautiful, perfect face that stared up at him with wide eyes and wet lashes and a mouth that tried to decide if it should still cry or not.

He put the lid down very carefully then so it didn't make any noise to startle his boy - girl - oh god, he didn't even know. No big moves, nothing scary; he reached inside and brought his baby to his chest. "It's okay, Daddy's here."

Oh...I'm someone's Daddy.

It was so much more real than laying in that empty bed in the Tardis, pretending Amy had just stepped out of their room for a minute, and trying to get his head around the thought that he was going to be a father.

"That's me, I'm your Daddy." He was going to be cool about this, he reminded himself. Everyone was going to say, 'that Rory Williams has to be the coolest dad I know'.

He looked into those eyes and knew he just met the one person whom he fell for faster than he had for Amy. "I love you already. So much." Got to get it together, though. Who knew what Kovarian and her people had done. "Let me just see you, okay. Make sure everything's fine."

He opened the blanket wrapped around that fragile body and touched fingers, toes, chest, and tummy.

A daughter. God bless the Queen and let the world know, he had a _daughter._

"Let's go find Mum." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "She's going to be so happy."

**. . . . .**

He burst into the control room making Amy and the Doctor jump in their places by the console.

"Oi! Stupid! What's with coming in here and scaring everyone!"

He ignored Amy and got right in the Doctor's face. "You know what I remembered?"

"No, I don't actually. Could be a number of things. What you wanted to get for lunch, where you left your-"

He jabbed the Time Lord hard in the chest making Amy yell again and the Doctor more bewildered even as he gave a little _Ow_. "It's all about the little girl. Right? Who she is, why she's in a spacesuit in Florida. We should find her, she's important. Isn't that what you said?"

The Doctor swallowed.

"Or!" Rory yelled. "We could just go off and have some adventures! Forget her! Forget that she was so terrified that she kept screaming Help me! Forget that those monsters are torturing her and she's all alone on a street somewhere! Because you're in a mood for adventure!"

The Doctor didn't say anything. He just kept trying to meet Rory's eyes.

"Rory-" Amy began.

"She was Melody! _Our _Melody! And left behind so we could have good time! Even if she wasn't Melody, didn't you tell me that this is how it works, Amy? Don't get involved unless children are crying? Didn't she cry enough to get your attention, Doctor?" He turned on his wife. "How about you? She didn't say help me enough when you shot her!"

"RORY!"

"Don't! Just don't! Don't say anything. Because I left her behind too. And I'll never forgive myself for it."

He slammed a fist on the wall as he rushed out.

**. . . . .**

He leaned closer to the computer screen. He was back at it, researching, looking up everything he could find about something that once was outside of his world. The same as years ago after Prisoner Zero when he read up on scientific theories such as parallel universes and transdimensional engineering.

This time, he read whatever he could find on kidnapped children and their emotional-mental states if they made it back to their families. These lines pulled him eagerly to the screen:

They love their parents in a way only they could, having lost them and miraculously got them back. That love is unique; 'normal' children rightly don't know since they never had it taken away. It is desperate, fierce, thankful, fearful, great.

In short: Melody Pond.

**. . . . .**

He drove up in his new car, his all time favourite car in the world, and pulled over in front of their new home with its Tardis blue door. He didn't see her until he had one leg out on the road.

She stood there, blonde curls falling around her face as she first held herself and then forced her arms down to her sides. She shook in a fine tremble like a cold breeze had run down her back. She sounded so small. "Hello."

Before he could do anything, she barely said, "I didn't know if you ever wanted to see me again."

He rushed to her without even closing the car door and grabbed her up close. "Of course I want to see you. I'll always want to see you," he whispered.

She clung to him. "_Dad_."

He called Amy to tell her Melody was here: "Yes, River but _Melody_. You know. Right after Berlin and the hospital for her. She said she came from her university and she thinks we don't want her because of what happened."

Amy borrowed a car and told him later that she earned three speeding violations in her rush to get home.

That wasn't important. What mattered was they sat with River in between them as if they were the walls that could keep everything horrible outside the fortress they made around her. She clutched their hands and spilled out years of pain.

"I _wanted_ to be at your wedding. Remember, you said you'd save a dance for me, Dad, and I was supposed to stand next to you, Mother. Remember? You asked me."

"Then why–"

"For the same reason they never wanted me around you when you were first meeting with the Doctor. I wasn't _born _yet - in your timelines -" and like Prisoner Zero, the Clerics were too worried that her programming would be triggered by seeing the Doctor (because of course the Doctor would make an appearance at their wedding), and they couldn't afford an early attack. If she killed the Doctor before her parents created her, the problems were obvious and deadly. It was too high a risk with Lake Silencio waiting for Kovarian's Melody Pond.

"I told them I could handle it if the Doctor showed up, that I wasn't going to have a shoot out at your wedding." But the Clerics knew her conditioning better than she did and removed her from Leadworth.

Their Melody, their still new River Song, cried. Not openly, but in the tears that she kept from falling and the hunch in her shoulders. It broke Rory's heart.

_When children cry silently it's cos they just can't stop. Any parent knows that_, Amy remembered later. Including, as they found out, small children in grown up bodies.

He cradled her in his arms and met Amy's coming around from the other side, kissed those blonde curls, and whispered over and over again how he loved her, they both did, as it all poured out.

"We know it wasn't you," he said again. "It's what they did to you. It's Kovarian."

She sniffled and tried to hide it. She looked up with wet lashes and wide eyes. "Who's Kovarian?"

He wanted to throw up. He wanted to snap Kovarian's neck for what she had done to his daughter. Amy looked at him with the same sick realization that the Silence had twisted River's memory so she didn't remember them or the women who arranged everything done to her.

He ground his teeth against the nausea rolling up his throat. He wouldn't say it, he _couldn't _say it. If he was supposed to tell her who was Kovarian, an older version of her would have said so. That left him with only thing.

He forced it out past clenched teeth. "Spoilers."

**. . . . .**

For their first Mother's Day together, River gave Amy the picture of them taken shortly after she was born.

Amy gave River a tender smile that suddenly changed. "You went back to Greystark?!"

"Mother, I wasn't in any danger. I went after we had left."

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

Rory stayed out of it, although he agreed with Amy, because a wise soldier knew which battles needed him and which ones needed him to stay away. It paid off, because once things calmed down, River showed that the other present she had brought was the Tardis' ultrasound recordings from when Amy was pregnant. Mixed in with them were videos of Amy moving around the ship with this transparency at her middle showing unborn Melody surrounded by fine threads of golden light that she reached for with hands that looked like mittens.

Rory fell into the closest seat, although he would happily flop on the floor for this. Amy's hand grabbed his and they watched fascinated as Melody grew finger buds and sprouted toes, and they counted the twin heartbeats that showed through the translucent skin as the gold light reflected in the dark, dark eyes.

"Cute little thing, wasn't I?" River teased.

They laughed and threw their arms around her as they plopped her down between them on the sofa where they watched it again together.

**. . . . .**

"It just gets confusing," he said. "I can say Mels and you know who I mean, but you're Melody! So I can't say Melody when we're talking about little you."

He was putting up a shelf while River flipped through a magazine where she sat. He spoke mostly in jest because he needed to at least once talk about something light-hearted concerning his daughter's first life.

"Little Melody?" She answered. "Young Melody? How about Melody with the American accent?"

"Yeah, that rolls off the tongue. Wait... you had an American accent?"

The light-heartedness came to an abrupt end.

She looked up at the loss in his voice. Her face closed off, obviously yelling at herself for cruelly reminding her father that he didn't know anything about her at that age. That wasn't fair and he knew it. He had started this talk. She shouldn't blame herself.

She dropped her magazine next to her. "I had an American accent," she said softly.

Of course she did. She had spent that life in America after all. He just hadn't let it register as they listened to that recording: _It's here! The Spaceman's here. It's gonna get me. It's gonna eat me!_

He knelt down next to her chair. "What else?" He didn't know how much she could remember, but he wanted to know whatever it was. The positive things, he reminded himself. He needed to hear the positives.

"Well, let me think..."

"Favourite treat?" he suggested, for both their sakes.

She gave a sweet smile. "Hershey Kisses. Those little chocolates shaped like teardrops? One of the women there snuck them to me. I would chew off the point so I could put the rest of it against the roof of my mouth. To make it last longer."

Rory felt instant thanks for that woman who was thoughtful to his daughter; then he remembered that woman, whoever she was, still helped keep Melody captive. She was no Lorna Bucket.

"What else? ...Favourite doll? Stuffed animal?"

"My teddy bear. He was my favourite. That's why he got to be on my pillow, although the stuffed cat and horse were close seconds so they stayed on the bed too."

He was holding her hands. "What was the bear's name?"

She grinned. "I was a highly intelligent child. What do you think I named him?"

Something in that twinkle told him to take it the opposite way. "Pooh? Paddington?" he teased. She shook her head, eyes sparkling. He thought for a second. "Bear?"

She nodded, all but laughing, just like him. "Bear," she said. "His name was Bear."

He kissed her cheek. "Clever girl."

**. . . . .**

On their first Father's Day together, River gave him a picture of Melody with the American accent who loved Hershey Kisses and Bear. In it, she held a dandelion in a bright spot of colour against her brown dress as she reenacted a cheap painting she had kept on her windowsill. On the back, River wrote her age in the photo with _Happy Father's Day. Love you, Dad._

She said softly, "I wanted you to know I had your colouring."

Amy looked over his shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his waist and tucked her head against him. Then she suddenly leaned closer for a better look. "Melody Pond! Stop going back to Greystark! Don't roll your eyes at me!"

"Mother, it was the _same_ trip!"

He didn't even hear them. He looked at his little girl who had his colouring and Amy's round face. He hadn't seen her in Florida. That was probably for the best.

He wasn't going to cry.

Yeah, he was.

**. . . . .**

Who would have thought he had to be a disciplinarian? _That_ had been a surprise. The first time he had needed to say something (at least, had to say something since she had been Mels), he put some of the Centurion behind it. "Melody. _Enough_."

To his complete astonishment, she listened and left the room grumbling under her breath that it shouldn't work on her. He watched her turn the corner out of the kitchen before letting the stern father facade break . He turned to Amy, the two of them mutually gasping and wildly gesturing in the air. "Did you see that? It worked!"

"I know!" she whispered back fiercely, trying to keep River from hearing them. "I can't _wait_ until it's my turn!"

But Amy's stern voice only made River bristle and rebel or grin, just as it had in her last regeneration, leaving Rory with the both of them on his hands. If he wasn't quick enough or smart enough to see the warning signs and get out with some mates to the pub or to some other safe escape, his wife would drag him into it, claiming "United front! You have to back me up!" in case he thought he could say their daughter was right.

So they figured out Amy's job was to pick River up when she fell, hold on to her when she hurt, listen, guide her when her Pond temper got her in trouble, and push when her daughter needed the push.

(_Just tell him, River!_ when her daughter faltered under the Doctor's onslaught at the top of the pyramid.)

His job was to comfort, listen, guide her when the Williams part of her hurt, and roll the Dad voice out when she needed to be stopped. He also needed to treat any wounds she brought to him.

"Glad to see you listened to our talk about you being careful," he muttered as he put in a last stitch.

"I was careful."

"River-"

"If I wasn't careful, it would have been worse."

He sighed. "You need to give me everything I need to know about your physiology. What your heart rate should be, your pulse, blood pressure - all of it." He shook his head as he finished with the last stitch. "How did I miss that you had two hearts? Sorry, rhetorical question. I meant when I examined you as a baby. Your Ganger, actually. Never mind, you don't know."

She made the tiniest noise like a breath and joy mixed together. It made him look up and her expression grew so soft. "I was crying and terrified in the dark, and then the lid was suddenly lifted off the carrier. You moved into the light so I wouldn't be blinded by it, and then you picked me up and cuddled me to your chest. You were warm and safe and... glorious." Her voice trembled and hitched on the next words. "You said to me, 'It's okay, Daddy's here.' I remember. Dad, I remember."

"_Melody_."

**. . . . .**

She came to him for advice on university life:

"How did you put up with some of those people? I swear I need to thin out this herd. Some of them might breed and then where the universe be?"

As well as sharing her triumphs:

Amy held out her mobile. "University call. Why couldn't she get you on your mobile?"

He took it from her. "It's charging in the other room. River? Everything okay?"

"I'm the only undergraduate picked for the field team, Dad!"

And trials:

"I swear the only thing I could learn from Professor Bungard is how to sleep with my eyes open. If I hadn't learned it already back in Leadworth."

- plus needing their experience on being time travelers. They also needed to give advice on being married and the Doctor to the younger versions (once they told a younger River that they knew the Doctor was alive, that she had told them, and it was good that she did), and give their understanding and support with what she was facing when the older versions came home. Depending on whatever facet of them their daughter needed at the time.

That was how they settled into raising River Song.

**. . . . .**

He came home from his shift at the hospital to find River asleep and draped over the sofa, textbooks and papers everywhere on the table and her computer in need of a charge. Oh how he remembered his own student days and now the image of his daughter was superimposed over the memory of it being him sprawled out and with his school work all over.

He packed books and her papers carefully together, so she could find everything, and saved all open work on her computer before setting it to charge, then got it all put away in her bag.

("What are these blacked out areas?" he asked her the next day, pointing to a spot in a textbook.

"It's about me." How did he not recognize that grin as Mels'? "And of course I can't study my future, so they black out the passages."

He blinked as what she said sunk in. "Does that happen a lot?"

She shrugged as in _What's a lot. _"Enough, I suppose. But how's that for bragging rights? I'm in history books already. So are you and Mum. I'm not allowed to see those either. Spoilsports.")

He checked the cupboards to make sure they had something decent for her to eat - he knew she'd either be eating whatever was quick or not eating at all - and made a list for the shops tomorrow. Finally, he carefully tucked in the arm and leg hanging off the sofa before gently scooping her up in his arms. She fretted, peeked out of barely open lids as soon as he touched her, and settled against him when she saw who had her. Her lips moved and she probably thought she was saying something, but she was already asleep again and made no sound.

Amy went up ahead to hold the bedroom door open and folded back the covers on River's bed. Rory placed her down and then waited next to Amy. Just like when she was Mels, River went from her body straggling all over the mattress to cuddling up around a pillow, hugging it under her head and shoulders. They made sure she wasn't stirring before turning out the light and closing the door with one more look back at her.

**. . . . .**

He watched Louis Baker dying and struggled against the sad fact that a nurse's life included patients dying. But what made this time hurt Rory personally was the damage to the man's vocal cords making it impossible for him to speak to his wife. All Rory could think about was what if that was him with Amy.

He called River. "Can you-" He turned his back to the room and hunched over his mobile. "I know it sounds - well, weird. But do you have the telepathic abilities that the Doctor has?"

She barely said hold on and showed up in seconds with this bright look of hope. "Are you asking if I would connect with you that way?"

No, he wanted to know if she could speak for the dying man to his wife, and he wanted the answer to be yes so much that he didn't notice that hope dwindling in her eyes.

"Dad, how am I supposed to explain it?"

"They believe in psychics. So, I'm thinking –"

Of course she did it; he knew she wouldn't refuse him. She gave the couple those last moments and their messages of love to each other. It wasn't until it was over and Rory saw she had given them some peace that he realized what River had offered him.

He could touch his daughter's mind.

What would it have been like? Would he sense young Melody? Would Mels leap up in recognition? Was River separate as the Centurion was or would he feel the unique taste of each of them while, at the same time, all of them together?

For the first time, he realized what else it meant that she gave up her regenerations to save the Doctor, because he would never see the other women his daughter could have been. Melody had his colouring at first. Would there had been another face like his? Or Amy's?

_If_ he had lived to see them at all. Because his child would outlive him... wouldn't she? That's the way it worked; she would survive him –- just how much was her life shortened with what she gave up? He wouldn't have to see her... see her die – he had to be spared that, the thing no parent wanted to feel, surviving their child – wouldn't he? He had already lived one of the worst moments as a father, finding he couldn't protect his child –

The people at the next bed broke into the moment before he could ask River if she really would let him touch her mind. He had forgotten about the other family in the room. _How_ could he forget the patient lying in bed with his eyes darting around everyone sitting near him. His wife who held his hand, anguish in her every line with tears being held back - how many years had they been together. A lifetime, but he didn't know that anymore. She had become a stranger that barged into his privacy.

His wife, however, wasn't the one who had interrupted Rory's thoughts. It was the daughter who pressed against the edge of her father's bed, holding his other hand in both of hers. "Dad? C'mon, Dad. It's me. Please, it's _me_. You know me. You know me!"

_There's a far worse day coming for me._

The Doctor wasn't the only one who was forgetting River as she moved back-to-front. Who looked at her as a stranger, unloved. _Doctor Song_, he had called her that day in Stormcage. He was rubbish, absolute rubbish, in keeping the timelines straight, which was bizarre considering how many he had lived through. Even so, he hadn't called her River when he could have. _Doctor Song? It's Rory. Sorry, have we met yet?_

No wonder she had looked at him with that restrained sadness.

_It's going to kill me._

She had left the hospital immediately, saving one family and leaving behind the other one who acted as a crystal ball to her future.

**. . . . .**

"Rory!"

He burrowed into his pillow and set himself on pretending Amy wasn't shaking him.

"Wake up, this is important!"

It didn't sound important. It sounded like Something-is-annoying-me- and - I'm-going-to-make-you-listen-because-I-can.

"Go back to sleep, Amy."

"I wasn't sleeping. Wake up, stupid! Remember a little while before we were married when you told Mels you thought all her boyfriends where the same?"

He pulled the pillow over his head. "I'm not remembering that. Go away."

"Listen! You said they basically looked alike and acted like each other. Remember? She had that string of blokes for awhile there? My mum called them the clones."

"Don't call them a string. It was a few guys. I am NOT remembering this!"

She shook him harder. "Rory! Think about it! Remember what River said? About dating a plastic guy with swappable heads?"

"No, no, no, no!" He pulled the pillow harder around his head. "Don't say it!"

"But, stupid, think! What if those guys Mels dated were that one plastic guy who was changing his head!"

"WHY!" he shouted. He shot up in the bed, pillow and blanket flying. "Why would you make me think about that!"

"I'm supposed to suffer alone? But to be fair to Mels, I did snog you when you were plastic. So... maybe we can't tell our daughter she shouldn't have snogged plastic. Oh ew! What if she did more?! I mean, when you think about it, I'd have shagged you. Rory! Do you think she-"

He hunched in a ball under every pillow and all the blankets. "No, no, no, no!"

**. . . . .**

"So this is what? You bringing us to see your science fair project?"

River made a face at Amy's teasing. "Is that what you call this?"

Rory couldn't stop looking at their view. They were high in orbit above a world being reborn at their feet. "You made a planet."

"I didn't make the planet. That happened in the usual way, but it's been classified dead for centuries. Then I read an article written by the professor who's in charge here and when I saw pictures of the ruins and their symbols - well, long story short, they had been mistranslated. They didn't account for Time. The energy was dormant as its native species spanned Time as an evolution of the _planet_. By not fulfilling the natural succession of life here, people had caused the planet's dormancy. See? I only translated it so the link between Life here and Time was made. Now the planet's reborn."

"Oh well." Amy turned back to the planet, vibrant and alive again with archeologists, historians, and linguists filling ships that dotted its orbit in a huge array like a net. "When you put it like that, it's no big deal really." She grinned and hugged River who had rolled her eyes.

Someone called River away from them and Rory took advantage of it. "Did you understand any of that?" he asked Amy.

"Not a bit. I have about fifteen questions to look up in the Tardis whenever the Doctor decides to stop pretending he's dead." She looked over at River answering some question they couldn't hear. She beamed at Rory. "Do you see what she's doing? She's showing off to us."

"I know." He leaned closer in conspiracy. "I love it."

Sure they had seen River do amazing things and Amy had wondered what effect the Tardis would have on their unborn child, but to see this: people running around, coming here in droves and doing what she said based on something she could see that they couldn't. Then climbing over each other to try and get her notice when it all worked out - like she had blown a breath and given the planet life. This was _Melody Pond, superhero_ and _River Song, archeologist_ mixed with _our baby has a Time Head_.

So River could show off all she wanted as far as her father was concerned. Frankly, he was overawed that this was _their_ daughter and more than a little chuffed when she introduced them as "my mother and father" to the professor in charge.

"I have to go to Central Control," River explained. "It could take a little while."

"Go, go!" the Professor said. "It will give me a chance to speak to your family."

It struck Rory that this was the first time they were recognized publicly as a family. The first good time, anyway. People pointing and saying to each other, "Look over there. They're River Song's mum and dad."

He really loved it.

The project head's short fur ruffled with puffed up excitement as he nearly hurt himself in congratulating them on their daughter and her accomplishments.

Which is when the chuffed feeling fizzled under the thought that they weren't responsible. "We can't take credit for any of it," Amy explained.

"Yes, you can. Aren't you her parents? And forgive me for my bluntness, but I read her record or I would not have her here. These Clerics underfoot are a nuisance," he grumbled under his breath. "Yes, she was taken from you, but you think because of it, you have no claim of her? While I heard her say privately, if not for you, she would never have been able to come back from the damage they had done. You give her the ground she needs to stand on, you give her the steadying hand. Because of you, your daughter can come here and do this marvelous thing. Why else would she ask you here. To show off, eh? To show off what she does because of you and herself. Take pride. In all of you."

_You are not a psychopath! Why would she be a psychopath?_

So maybe they could be puffed up a bit about the whole thing. Maybe River would have been a real psychopath if she hadn't had them as an anchor, even back then and as she fought against the conditioning ingrained in her very core. They with the Doctor were the thin lifeline against the overwhelming force of Kovarian's conditioning.

"Parenthood does not stop at adulthood," the professor continued as they all watched River coming back towards them before she was stopped again. She turned around and checked on them every couple of minutes. The project head chuckled. "Mine are the same. Always worrying when I do something like this."

Amy shared in his laugh and Rory shook his head. Oh, didn't they know it. River hovered around them like a protective guard dog who bristled and snapped when a Cleric looked at either of them wrong. Of course, just about every Cleric looked at River the wrong way and Amy had to be pulled off from ending them giving any looks ever again.

**. . . . .**

He wasn't one of those car enthusiasts that could tell you about every part of every car and how to torque the thingit to get that infinitesimal noch more of whatever. But he and Mels loved going over something they liked, debating each other's choices, and running to the computer to check out the 365º views.

So River inevitably showed up one day, pulling up next to him in a metallic Tardis blue muscle car. She had gunned the engine, challenging him with that Melody smile. He had mouthed _Can't. I got work_ as he shrugged Sorry, tapped his watch, and then slammed the gas pedal of his beloved car to the floor and leapt away.

She blazed by him, laughing as she went, and he joined in as they raced out of town, mugging at each other through their windows as they passed one another. It was a helluva lot of fun and one of his brightest memories with her. Until the police showed up.

She didn't help any by laughing through the whole thing, calling constables by name and saying, "It's like old times, isn't it?" when they naturally didn't recognize her as Mels.

"A '66 Shelby Cobra Super Snake CSX3303, Dad. One of only two ever made," she said as the police crawled over her car.

"I _know_, River. You've been wanting to get your hands on one ever since the first owner said it was too much speed for anyone to handle. How did you _get _it here?"

She shrugged that off like it wasn't even worth discussing. "Archeologist. It's not the toughest relic I had to move around. But after all, one reporter called it a 'stark terror that ate up the tracks and could bite you on the streets'. How am I supposed to resist?"

One constable overheard that and gave them a stunned look before going over to Rory's car to write up the speeding fine.

He nudged her shoulder. "A 1961 Ferrari 250GT California Spyder."

"I _know_, Dad. You've wanted one ever since you saw it in _Ferris Bueller's Day Off_."

Amy had found out (of course) and raged at them over how they could have been killed and dammit, she had better be on somebody's team next time.

**. . . . .**

Rory had the trunk out where he kept his Centurion's sword and leather armour, just to sharpen the blade, oil the leather bits and make sure everything was in good shape. River found him at it when she popped into the back garden. He had casually held out the sword to her when she showed interest.

The Centurion was out from behind his door before Rory even knew it. He was always close to the surface when the trunk was open and the sword was out and a part of his hands. River had started holding it out to look down the blade.

"No," he said without thinking. He shifted her grip as she murmured, "I understand, you mean like this?" and moved into a balanced position.

"That was Latin!" he exclaimed, switching to English again himself.

"Of course."

"You learned Latin?" he asked before thinking she would have to for her archeology work.

But that wasn't the answer. "Of course," she repeated casually. "You're my father. You speak it. I learned it for you."

He stared, mouth open, before he blinked at the tears and reminded himself that a crying Roman with a daughter is cool and set his arm alongside hers, moving them together. The Centurion had thousands of years protecting Amy and a day at her side. He was let free again to chase after her and fight for her on Demon's Run. But he was set back behind his door before he had anything with Melody. Now he sang in Rory's veins in time with his daughter.

He told her the memories he had sworn he didn't have about fallen, glorious Rome. What he loved about it, whom he had liked in the soldiers he had commanded and who were absolute _stulte_. They talked about the city and its cultures, the bits he liked and where he saw what was wrong.

His Father's Day gift that year was a Roman _subucula_, the tunic worn closest to the skin in cold weather. He knew as soon as it touched his hands that it was authentic. She had actually gone to Ancient Rome and had this made for him. The rare sea silk fabric was luxurious and meant for the richest Senators far beyond his Centurion class. It was a perfect colour to match his medical uniforms and measured to fit him exactly. He used to wear it under his scrubs.

The gift was signed as always _Love you, Dad_.

**. . . . .**

"But don't you want a real wedding?"

Amy's voice interrupted Rory watching the Doctor flit around the Tardis console. Not that he was complaining. Watching his wife and daughter chatting happily was a lot better. The four of them together again on the Tardis for the first time since the Doctor had faked his death. It felt... right. Whole.

This River came from her first night in Stormcage while he and Amy slept. His wife had mumbled, "So they're starting that whole thing again" when she found River at breakfast.

The Doctor turned around with a jerk when Amy said real wedding. He looked - Rory wasn't sure but he'd guess the Time Lord - oh good god, his son-in-law! - was stuck somewhere between puzzled and hurt.

River, on the other hand, was all smirks and feigned innocence. Like that combination could possibly work. "What sort of wedding did you have in mind, Mother? Earth has so many."

"Don't be so – Mels. You know what I mean."

"In the Church? After what they've done to me? No, thank you. They will not taint anymore of my life. Besides, such ceremonies are meaningless. The license marries you. Nothing else."

"My ceremony to Rory meant something to me!"

Her smile at him across the console reassured Rory that his daughter was going somewhere with this. "Why?"

"You know very well why! He was there telling me that he was – well, that it was me and him. Together. Everyone I love was there, except you. So of course it's real - and I just fell right into what you were saying."

River gave Amy the same warm smile she had just given him. "The people I love were there, except the Tardis. He bound his life with mine. And he did it in the way that has meaning to him. Probably even more than the ceremonial Gallifreyan cloth. That bowtie." A warm smile, a wife's grin. "It holds more meaning for him in this life."

Rory heard the Doctor give a breath of laughter as he shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned over to whisper. "It's true. My fourth self would have used the scarf. One would have used his tie - I should point out that I tied into a bow. As Eight, I'd have used my cravat. My fifth – well, I probably would have tried to make binding strands from my celery."

"You're what?"

"Celery. Safety precaution, of course, because of problems I had back then with certain gases in the praxis range. Celery turns purple if the gases are present, I eat the celery - excellent restorative from where I come from - and it's good for my teeth if nothing else."

"You wore celery?"

"Don't diss the celery."

"Right." Rory reminded himself not everything the Doctor had to make sense. Like now. "But, Doctor, this wedding."

"What about it?"

The way he faced the Time Lord let him now they weren't just two mates having a chat while the women went back and forth. This was too important. "Was it real?"

The Doctor looked as puzzled as when Amy said it. "Of course it was. Absolutely it was real. Why would you even question it?"

"It was an alternate universe."

"And you were a Roman Centurion made of plastic who guarded Amy for two thousand years in a universe that doesn't exist anymore. Is that real to you?"

He didn't have to even think about it. "Yeah. Very real."

"Well then!"

"What about all those other weddings then? Marilyn Monroe-"

"I told you it was a fake chapel."

"And Elizabeth the First and - I don't even know all of them. What about them? Were those real?" Because if they were, he was going to give into the ache in his hand to make a fist and connect with that prominent chin.

"Rory the Roman." The Doctor's look was the old man of the universe who had told so many lies speaking to the even older Centurion as well as Rory Williams, River's father. "Nothing could be more real than my marrying River. That wedding told her so, both for me as a Time Lord and me as The Doctor. I said the words and I wrapped the cloth binding our hands at all points in Time. It may have been in another universe inside the universe, but it is the binding ceremony of my people. I gave her the commitment I made to only one other person. My first wife, back on Gallifrey."

Rory became aware that Amy and River were also listening.

"And yes, we made that commitment in another universe. It's still as real as those two thousand years that didn't happen for the rest of this universe. So very _us_ anyway, isn't it? For me to marry the daughter of the Centurion who protected his love for two millenia and the Girl who restored the last Time Lord with a thought. And I did it with the best vow ever: _River Song. Melody Pond. You're the woman who married me. Really_ married me, Rory. I promise you that. No rule one."

Amy shoved Rory aside, so he didn't get a chance to say anything. She grabbed the Doctor in a crushing hug. "I get it now, Raggedy Man. Good on you." Because he elevated River to a place no one else ever held with him since his first wife. Then Amy punched him in the arm at the shoulder. "Make sure you keep that up."

"On threat of your wrath, Amelia Pond. Still! For Ponds' sake, River and I can have that other wedding the way you want it. Think about it, River!" He whirled around the console in a flurry of limbs flipping levers and cranking cranks until he reached her. "All the different weddings on all the different worlds and we could do them all! We've done the every_when_, nothing can top the - the _epicness_ of it. Marry me, River, this time every_where_. All across the universe until no one is more married than you and I, River Song. Melody Pond. Child of the Tardis. I would like there to be dancing at all of them, unless it's some taboo that could get us killed, because you know I love to dance at a wedding. Except you might not know it now, so it's a good thing I told you in case you ever want to bring it up. And don't worry about the Tardis. I got her consent. She's fine with us. More than that, more than fine." He had twirled away in a happy spin. "She's ecstatic. She probably told you so herself."

River watched her husband ramble on like a sugar energized toddler with a tolerant smile and a besotted gaze. Rory let out a deep breath. The besotted part: that was the Williams in her. So. He had something to say now..

"It's all right, Doctor." He shared a glance with Amy that spoke in silent shorthand. "We understand. But, there's still one more thing. Something real for me."

Everyone's eyes followed him as he walked over to River to stand next to her. "Right," he said and with great formality, he held out his arm to her.

Amy gave a small exclamation as she brought her hands up to her mouth under happy tear filled eyes. River's eyes glittered too; she smiled at him as she took his arm with as much ceremony as he gave it to her. He could tell she wanted this gesture between them as much as he did; only, she wouldn't have asked, wouldn't have forced him to make it. Who knows? Maybe she thought he wouldn't want to make it.

It didn't matter that he was in shorts and a polo. He folded his other hand on top of where River had laid hers on his arm, and escorted his daughter around the console with the same feeling filling his chest that he saw in Augustus' eyes as he escorted Amy down the wedding aisle.

The Doctor moved away a few steps so he wasn't tangled in machinery and stood tall, waiting.

Rory stopped in front of him. "The last time... I didn't know. I didn't know Amy was my wife and River was ours. So. This is me, knowing it."

He looked at River. He could have asked if she was sure. He could have said he and Amy would always be there for her, whatever she needed. He could say he'd kill the Doctor if he ever hurt her. But he knew she would say she was sure. She knew he'd always be there. The Doctor knew no Teselecta could save him from Rory - or Amy - if he failed River.

He squeezed her hand and felt her answering squeeze on his arm. He took a breath. "I consent and gladly give." And put River's hand in the Doctor's.

Amy openly cried now and bounced with little noises of joy.

The Doctor turned to him. "The _gladly_ sounded a bit reluctant. I could have done without that bit."

**. . . . .**

The next day, he put together that this was River right after Area 52 and the Doctor hadn't gone to her until he and Amy were back aboard.

Those years when the Doctor pretended to be dead even to them - he hadn't seen River. His wife. The woman who sacrificed everything she had built to sit in a prison as his murderer so he'd be safe.

Rory got his sword first before he hunted down the Time Lord.

**. . . . .**

He and Amy were pretty sure the Doctor had been a father. He hinted about a family on Gallifrey, but they definitely knew he also had a daughter that came to him as an adult. No diapers to change, no raising her from an infant, but a grownup calling him Dad. He had been shaken by it, but had then embraced being her father and looked forward to their life together.

"Then he lost her," River had said, finishing the story she began with explaining the discussion she and the Doctor had on why he didn't sense her or his daughter Jenny's Time Lord DNA. He had told River he needed to use a stethoscope to hear Jenny's twin hearts to confirm it instead of just sensing who she was. Had something happened physically that he no longer had the ability? It would explain why he should have sensed if any Time Lords really had crash landed on House, but hadn't. Or was it that she and Jenny didn't have native born Gallifreyan DNA and what happened with House was simply his desperation to believe Time Lords were there, even though he didn't sense them?

But his story with Jenny ended so sadly, he had abruptly ended their discussion and the sadness tainted River's voice as she told Rory. "Someone tried to kill him and she stepped in front of the gun."

That was what woke Rory up that night. He padded down the corridor to River's room. His heart both broke and froze at the story about Jenny. Broke for the Doctor who had a second chance and then lost the daughter who couldn't come back as Melody had. Frozen in fear over the possibility that his own child could someday die for the Doctor. She was certainly capable of making that sacrifice. Amy had joined him in the doorway and they stood there watching River sleep.

**. . . . .**

His eyes flew open just before he fell asleep. The scramble of thoughts and memories had suddenly caught on the Doctor collapsing from one of his hearts failing when the cubes opened.

They hadn't called River.

The thrum of the Tardis around him seemed to growl deeper and he felt it as a vibration in his chest. Their first night back on board, truly traveling with the Doctor again. Maybe that's why he was remembering that day. Maybe the Tardis had made him think about how he had acted on that same meaningless pattern they had lived with the last few years. Bury the thought of their daughter, don't make the connections because it could hurt. Remembering it now not only made the father in him curse, but the nurse in him yell.

What if the Doctor had died? He would have kept River from saying goodbye to her husband by not calling her. Every medical person knew to get the next of kin in an emergency. It was as ingrained in him as every nursing procedure he had ever learned. But not in this case. Not with his own daughter.

In fact - he punched his pillow and Amy murmured something nasty in her sleep. But the truth was he should have called River as soon as the Doctor collapsed. She would have been there in an instant and, in the same blink of an eye, gotten the Time Lord to the Tardis where he'd have gotten real care for his physiology instead of risking him with the defibrillator. He, a trusted nurse praised for saving lives, had endangered one over a wound that wasn't River's fault. If he had failed and the Doctor died, what would it have done to his daughter?

And he would have no excuse for it as a nurse or as her father.

He had to stop this. The Doctor said they were going somewhere to just relax, so he'd get his bearings and figure out how he was going to heal this rift.

He felt better just making the resolution, so he wrapped himself against Amy's back and drifted into sleep thinking sleepy promises.

Tomorrow, they landed in Manhattan and after that was plenty of time.


	3. Chapter 3: Scrapbook of Aftermaths

Chapter 3 Scrapbook of Aftermaths and Memorials

Then Manhattan happened. And the Weeping Angels.

That changed everything.

No time to say what he had planned now. No time to talk to her as his daughter. He never got to say goodbye. Only "Hello, River" when she showed up in front of him. He should have known she would, sooner or later.

In fact, he acted like regular old Rory. Rory before Demon's Run and Berlin. Like nothing ever happened. But after the paradox that saved he and Amy, the Doctor promised they were going to a pub. Family outing as River called it with a big grin. He would have his chance to say everything he wanted there.

But he didn't. The gravestone and the Angel changed all that.

**. . . . .**

He was just suddenly there, standing in front of her and holding takeout coffee. She could tell by the way he wore his hair and the age in his face that it was after the Doctor stopped playing dead for him, but had he lived the days when they told her to go?

No time to ask if things were different now. Only "Hello, Dad".

Still. She grinned:

No one surrendered like her Dad. Shot those hands in the air with lightning speed. No one would ever know he was the bravest of all them.

And there she was, still showing off for her father. _It'd be impossible to land the Tardis here. Even I couldn't do it._

But when they got through this, maybe they could work things out.

But they didn't. The gravestone and the Angel changed all that.

**. . . . .**

They changed everything except one bare fact:

No one knew more than Melody Pond how Amy and Rory should be together. She knew it before them. She saw it without the benefit of knowing the future. She made the first step for them when they wouldn't do it.

Her hearts broke in that cemetery, but she would never hurt her parents by keeping them apart just to save her the pain of losing them both.

That hand reaching out to her called her as much as her mother saying her name.

Melody said goodbye by taking her mother's hand and holding it in hers – hands that looked so much like Amy's - before she kissed it and folded it over the spot where her lips had touched as if to keep it safe. As if it would seal the kiss there forever. When her mother reached her father and she embraced him, his daughter's kiss would touch him too, even if he didn't know it.

It was the only goodbye their family had, her kissing Amy's hand as her mother said her final words to her, while they held on to each other in front of Rory's gravestone. Their hands, the daughter's kiss, and the mother's words all translated into:

_I love you. I love you._

It was all they had.

**. . . . .**

The Doctor whispered, "I'm sorry, River." to a much younger version and told her how someday in her future, she would lose those parents with the love in their eyes and the way they embraced her that still kept the world at bay when she hurt.

Even a grown child needed that. Even a grown child felt that horrible aching void when that's taken away.

Especially when that child and those parents with the love in their eyes had finally found each other.

She wanted to run to them right then, and hold them tight, and imagine that would never go away. But she had to wait. It was like those years she spent as her first incarnation, tracking down who her parents were, where they were.

And oh the day young Melody had found them. There they were. Back again.

_Took me years to find you two. I'm so glad I did._

It wasn't the way she had first planned it. Her mother wasn't the grownup Amy in her picture holding her as an infant; it wasn't the crayon drawings of the father charging to her rescue and whisking her away to be cared for. But they were here and they were hers.

After awhile, she realized the wonderful chance she had been given. In her past when the spaceman swallowed her, it carried her down a corridor until it reached two men and a woman.

Her mother! Her mother - here! _Help me!_

Her mother shot her.

Then she only demand answers even as Melody begged her: _Please help me._

She didn't take her away. All Amy had done was demand _Who are you? Just please tell me, because I don't understand!_

Why hadn't she understood? How could she not make the connection? She had just looked at the picture of them together, mother and daughter. And all the other pictures of her: why would all those pictures be together if she wasn't that baby that Amy was holding?

They said her mother was a time traveler; she understood that odd things happened, twisted and turned into new shapes – she had seen it happen a hundred different times – why didn't she make the connection?

Even if she couldn't, why didn't she help?

_Help me, please!_

Her caretakers were right: the Doctor poisoned her mother. Poisoned her against her own daughter.

So in the end, Melody Pond helped herself. Even when it came to finding her parents.

Now she had the chance to undo Amy's future. Now she had time _before_ the Doctor! What if – if she just made her mother love her? Then maybe she would help, then maybe her mother would choose her instead of the Doctor.

It hadn't worked that way. The Doctor still replaced her as the best friend. Her mother still shot at her.

But Amy still loved her, so much so that she had named her baby after her. After her daughter. So she had made a big part of her dream come true. She had found them and they loved her.

The only day better than that was waking up in the hospital because they were there, leaning over her with all the love and care she had dreamed of: Mother and Dad.

Now she had to know when she could go to them without crossing her timeline and running into herself. She had everything after Berlin to the day the Doctor had just given as their last. An older version would obviously know when a younger version used one of those visits, but a younger River had no clue if an older version was already there.

The Tardis knew; she existed in all points of time. She knew where every Melody Pond was at any given second.

So River synced the calendar she made with the Tardis. Several years: she had several years with parents that they looked at her with that same love they had when she woke up in the hospital. It wasn't eternity, it wasn't even a decade, but it was still several years, she reminded herself.

The Tardis then gave a sorry little noise before she removed the majority of those years when her parents were alive in Leadworth and on the Tardis herself. Everything from shortly after the second Christmas and beyond was gone.

_NO!_

"Why!" River demanded and the Tardis hummed sadly. It was the same answer on how her parents would die. When their family would be split apart again, this time forever:

Spoilers.

"But –" Their last Christmases. Their last birthdays and anniversaries. Their last _days_. Gone.

_Why?_

_Spoilers._

**. . . . .**

She found out why when she dared to go on that last day she was told she could visit. She should have known better.

_Because of you!_

_If we didn't have you –!_

_If you weren't born –!_

_Go away!_

"We can't have children," is what they told everyone else.

They even said it to each other.

**. . . . .**

"Why?" the young Melody inside her kept asking, the Melody who had been stolen and the one who searched for years. The one who saw her mother in Florida and kept begging her _Help me!_

"I just got them back!" the second Melody cried, the one that thrilled at finding them and the one that put them together. The one who had told them who she was and how glad she was to have them.

River, who was made up of them and the third, more experienced Melody – the last Melody, the one who had brought their family back together again, bundled them where they existed inside herself and hushed them with memories. She wrapped them all in the name River Song with the comfort of a soft blanket and the protection of a shield.

**. . . . .**

River called the Tardis and asked for coordinates when the Doctor would be out on one of his adventures, leaving the ship by herself to wait. That meant she and River could talk alone. They made a sight, the woman and the blue box talking in a field.

Mels and younger Rivers often told themselves that it was silly to be jealous of her one month old self, just because that was the child her parents wanted. Always wondering if she could do something - become someone they would love as much and would wish she'd come home with the same feeling as they did for the one month old daughter. Be their Melody as much as the newborn was.

But now even one month old her wasn't good enough, because she had ruined everything.

The answer was obvious. Except the Tardis refused. It was the biggest row they ever had; maybe the only fight they ever really had.

_No_, the Tardis insisted.

"Yes!" River argued back.

_If I chose to give it, I still could not._ The Doctor had already searched in her timeline for a safe spot to bring baby Melody home to her parents. It couldn't be done. What River sought was even greater. She asked to never exist so her parents could have the children they wanted.

River raged and screamed and argued, but the Tardis kept having to say the same thing: _I am sorry_ - for the sake of her child's hurting, not for herself who selfishly was glad she would keep her daughter.

Melody must be born and taken. Mels must struggle and be programmed. River must recover and thrive.

Or reality would be destroyed.

**. . . . .**

She thought she could handle it.

She went to see them at the first Christmas crossed out against her on the calendar and stood outside, looking at them through the windows. How happy they were. The lights from the tree splashed colours in Amy's bright hair as her head fell back in a laugh from rubbing biscuit batter down Rory's nose. He grabbed her and rubbed it back into her neck as she must have shrieked and he laughed too.

She was so glad they were happy.

But it didn't stop the feeling of being the one outside in the cold.

She used up one of the all important dates she hoarded and appeared outside their front door on the last Boxing Day she could visit. She ran into Amy's arms without a hello or a Happy Christmas. Her younger version had covered that anyway when she had spent Christmas Eve and the big day itself here, leaving just earlier this morning.

The stocking they had bought her the previous year was still out and in its place next to theirs. She tried keeping the tears back, but she just clutched her mother harder.

"What is it?" Rory asked. He kept looking back to Amy frantically, as if she somehow knew.

River leaned against the hand he laid on her shoulder. "I just wanted to see you."

**. . . . .**

Manhattan changed it all again. The day she knew was coming finally came. She knew now the when and the how and the where of it.

She held onto that feeling of Amy's hand in hers.

**. . . . .**

_I know you're not alright. But hold tight, Amy, because you're going to be._

_It's me. I'm Melody. I'm your daughter._

They had been more than 'alright' for a little while. It had been _everything_.

**. . . . .**

Demon's Run - bringing herself back to her parents when their older selves had told her to stay away. Standing at the end of the month when her mother had all her daughter's incarnations in her life for the second time, something that rarely happened even on Gallifrey. Sending them forward as she went backwards to them not knowing her, and the fear that the time to say goodbye forever was the next time she'd see them.

**. . . . .**

Utah and biting back what she knew about the Doctor in a Teselecta, wishing she could grab _their_ bowtie before it's burned, and a Ganger mother filling in for pregnant Amy on Demon's Run. The nightmares of her childhood reaching out to grab her father; she had to stifle screaming _DAD!_ like she wanted and instead had to use _RORY!_

Florida with her and her first incarnation running around their parents, while the second waited in Leadworth for them to come home. Her father never being there when little Melody was around, and her mother always, always aiming that gun and begging to understand.

The Pandorica with her and her mother spending 2000 years inside a box: both put there to save them from death at the unwilling hands of someone who loved them. Her mother watched over by a lone Centurion. She watched over by the Tardis in her other mother's final act before her death across time that would restart the universe.

Too soon, the Byzantium, a young Doctor,, her father not there at all, and her mother saying, "Aren't you going to introduce us?"

**. . . . .**

_You are creating fixed time! I will never be able to see you again!_

**. . . . .**

River wrote the Melody Malone book, one of the easiest things she had ever done since it was sitting right there in published form. (It was known for being the only other book outside of Rex Stout's that didn't need editing. "It's like we already went through it," the publisher said in interviews.) She bundled it up with the passports and all the other legal paperwork Rory and Amy would need for their new life, then gathered gold, gems, and other valuables that would hold their worth unlike the appropriate currency for America 1938.

She went back to Manhattan to a time far enough in the past to avoid the wake of temporal instability eddying out of New York into the past and future, the way the cracks from the Tardis' explosion once ebbed throughout time and space. If she got too close to that Time "fault line" now running through Manhattan, she risked her parents' lives. The distortion would be triggered into an explosion by the artron energy absorbed by any time traveler, like a gas leak by a flame. Amy and Rory couldn't leave - since the fixed time would trigger a paradox and destruction - and even if they could, they couldn't return to fulfill the fixed point because their artron energy would cause destruction. So they had to stay and she couldn't go to them.

So she traveled back to 1876. She spread the wealth she had collected into private vaults she seeded throughout the city. Figuring she might as well get some fun out of the trip, River popped over to the American Centennial celebration in Philadelphia and had images made of her with Alexander Graham Bell and Andrew Carnegie, both large with Scottish pride at the Exposition's Machinery Hall. She included those in her package for her mother's sake; Amy would love those. She even tracked down the original "devil car" and had an artist sketch of her with it for her father to grin over.

She researched which law firms existed in 1876 and would still be there in her parents' new time period, then entrusted each of them with a package of legal papers and a letter to one vault with a one line clue for that safe's combination: "the day the crack was fixed" read one; "the day I woke in the hospital" was a second; "the day of your first date" and so on. Any one of the packages would see them through their new lives, just in case any of the law offices failed her. Her mother and father were _not_ going to suffer from being at Ground Zero of America's Great Depression or even from New York's problems at the beginning of World War II. They weren't going to suffer from lack of medical care either, because she stuffed the nursing supplies Rory liked best in each bundle.

Every law form had instructions to deliver it at the proper point of April 3rd, 1938 and she smoothed over the lawyers' protests about how they couldn't do such a thing with enough cash to cement their professional loyalty. The reason most of those law firms survived until 1938 was the investment River sunk into each them.

She included a letter filled with love and thanks for their being the best parents she had ever wished for as a young girl. She signed it, "I love you. Always. Your Melody."

**. . . . .**

Interviews about the Melody Malone book spoke of a prequel, so River got a hold of it to write it out. She sent it happily with another letter to her mother and father.

**. . . . .**

She imagined them opening all those packages and felt all over again the feeling of Amy's hand. It was so important.

**. . . . .**

Especially:

When Anthony Brian Williams was sent alone to Leadworth with a note that never mentioned her, she held onto that feeling.

When her parents once more explained the complicated happenings of their lives, but not her...

When her little brother knew about their parents' time twisted experiences and the Doctor, but never was told he had a sister...

She held onto that feeling of her mother's hand in hers and that feeling of being loved. Her mother's profile, the only part of her mother's face she could see as Amy stared at the Angel so she wasn't taken before she said goodbye... the tears running down her cheeks making the tendrils of red hair blowing in the breeze stick to her skin.

And as her head turned to the Doctor, even in that less than a second, River's hearts clenched in a wordless _This is it._

**. . . . .**

Right after Manhattan and the Angels, she wondered why her parents hadn't come to her when she was in New York; in those summer months in 1969 when she investigated the Silence's occupation of America, before she had to pretend to run away from Canton. More importantly, after she had just lived the devastation in Utah again, watching as her younger self came out of the lake and relived being in the damned suit. Being with two Doctors who had no idea she was his wife and the younger one telling her in no uncertain terms that he didn't trust her, that he would use every bit he knew about her already to _hurt_ her because she wouldn't tell him something.

She could have used – no, she had _needed_ her parents then. If she had known their older versions – a mother and father who knew who she was – were in the city, she would have immediately gone to them. They would be in their sixties... what would they be like? She tried picturing them in her mind.

Then she discovered Anthony Brian Williams.

Where Anthony Williams began, Melody Pond stopped.

Maybe it was the simple fact of 'out of sight, out of mind'.

Maybe they blamed her again that they had to adopt Anthony and not have children biologically.

Maybe, unlike Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor, they had decided that changing diapers was the definitive statement of parenthood after all, and so she didn't qualify as their daughter.

Maybe it was the changes to her mother's timeline because she had sent the Doctor to her younger self in the Afterword of "Melody Malone". Not that River, who was obviously there with her little mother for all five of those different timelines, could think of a change that explained it.

Maybe it was the fact they were pretending to be normal: they had said their goodbyes. Maybe they had finally made the decision they had talked about long ago and chose one life while they put everything about the other in the past. They were the Williams family now while she was a Pond.

She didn't know.

**. . . . .**

_I wish I could tell you that you'll be loved._

_But this isn't a time for lies._

**. . . . .**

The Doctor insisted, "You have to tell your grandparents that they have a granddaughter."

But she shook her head. "You _know_ I can't."

"Why ever not!"

Because her parents had their reasons for not telling her grandparents about her.

Because if Rory and Amy had wanted anyone to know they had a daughter, they would have told them so themselves. The way they had told people about the Doctor and, in even a more telling move, had made him a part of their everyday lives.

The way they made sure their parents knew about the time twisted, complex truths of New York and their son. But not her.

She didn't know why, but she knew this:

"I will _not_ disrespect them by going against their wishes!"

_Melody. Be a good girl._

The Doctor's head bowed over his folded hands where he sat slumped on the floor of the console room's center ring and he nodded.

**. . . . .**

"Someone's a Daddy's girl!" he once teased her with a smirk, bouncing up on his toes and back on his heels catching her behavior with Rory.

"Oh shut it." She had grinned back.

After Manhattan, he never said it again.

**. . . . .**

She always referred to her parents in the present tense, even though she was always in their past from the moment the Doctor said they had died.

After Manhattan, she used the past tense instead.

**. . . . .**

_What you are going to be, Melody, is very, very brave._

**. . . . .**

She watched over her grandparents. Over Brian who much later met a lovely widow with children and grandchildren, and found some peace with them as well as with his older-than-him grandson in his final years. Over Tabitha and Augustus who eventually couldn't bear the reminders in Leadworth, and went home to Scotland and other Ponds.

Both Brian and Augustus kept their Father's Day books and regaled Anthony and everyone else with stories about their children.

And one day, Brian dug up an old, battered trinket that had worked its way down into the ground with the same trowel he had used against a pterodactyl. While Augustus saw a mate trip over his wife's handbag and curse, "That woman!"

They both stopped to think: I wonder if the Doctor ever married that archeologist?

**. . . . .**

River kept watch over Anthony as well in the time she knew about him. She took care of him from a distance and smoothed out the obstacles he faced in life whenever she could, backtracking his timeline as far as she could go with the temporal fault line running through much of his life.

Passport problems preventing him from going to England and meeting his grandparents were easily untangled; all he knew was the phone call that came saying everything was fine after all and to enjoy his trip.

A mugger that attacked him inadvertently tripped over nothing (River's foot sweeping his legs from a dark corner in the alley) and was knocked out from the fall (actually from the right hook she inherited from Rory and a little mnemosine recall-wipe vapour so the thief didn't remember the punch) while Anthony was running off to get the police.

People often joked that he had someone watching over him. He would grin and say in the American accent that was so much like his unknown sister's original one: it was probably his Mom and Dad keeping an eye on him from up above. "It's got a very Williams feel about it."

He didn't know it was true.

And since he never knew about his older sister, he couldn't be sad that he outlived her.

**. . . . .**

_She's a good girl!_

**. . . . .**

Her father's death in 1989 and her mother being alone for the five years after it kept nagging at River. If she could be by his side to say goodbye, maybe they could heal whatever this rift was that made her parents separate her from her family. Maybe she'd have her mother again if she could be with Amy as they really lost Rory with no chance of his coming back. It tempted her mercilessly until it nearly overrode what she knew she risked by time traveling near the instability.

She traveled back to the right time in upstate New York and rented a car. She drove to the edge of the weakened temporal fault line and then walked towards it. It crackled like a force field as it reacted to her artron energy and its weakened state grew stronger off the potency of such a time traveler and a child of the Vortex.

River stepped back.

Her mother had Anthony; she wasn't alone.

Going into the city jeopardized her father, her mother and brother as well as everyone else in New York. The same reason Amy and Rory had never been able to leave, even for a visit, and then go back to fulfill the fixed point.

She stayed away.

**. . . . .**

The Doctor had gone to Tabitha, Augustus, and Brian to tell them what had happened; meaning the Tardis dumped him on their doorsteps and threw him outside.

He found that Anthony with his notes from his parents had already explained everything. The Ponds and Brian eventually forgave him (which was why his ship had dumped him here); maybe because their Amelia and Rory lived happy lives.

They held a joint memorial service, even though any funeral had already happened in New York.

The Doctor didn't attend. River did.

She stood in the back of the crowd and watched as the headstones were put between Rory's mother and another uninhabited grave bearing the name Melody Zucker. Her brother - her _brother! _- stopped at the stone and she saw him ask Tabitha Pond about it. She turned away, but still caught the sight of Anthony climbing into their father's car before she left. She smiled, soft and a little sad, but still a smile as she imagined all the years Rory had told his son about that car. She wondered if he had bought one in 1966 when they were first made.

**. . . . .**

She had updated her final instructions for her own death with the Tardis after Manhattan, so her husband would know to bury her with her parents in New York. When she found out Anthony had no word about her, she changed her instructions again feeling she didn't have the right to be with them. Not to mention the trouble it could cause if her brother ever found out.

After the Library, the Tardis showed the Doctor both changes as well as why River had made each of them. His expression darkened when he heard about the last one. "That. Won't. Do."

He barely seemed to fly the old girl to Manhattan 2012; the controls seemed to move themselves a millisecond before he moved them. But then, River was the Tardis' child and she had shown the removed instructions for a reason.

He didn't want to be back here, standing at Rory and Amy's graves and especially not when... but it was where he was needed. He scattered some of River's ashes over her parents' graves –

– ashes since her _body is a miracle. Even a dead one. There are whole empires out there who'd rip this world apart for just one cell._

He saved the rest to be spread in the Vortex. It was exactly the right end for his River, daughter of the Ponds and the Tardis.

Amy had been wrong years ago: there had been room for two more names on the gravestone. He carefully etched into the marble under where it spelled out Rory and Amy:

_And their beloved daughter Melody Pond_.

He leaned his head against the Tardis' door and whispered to his grieving blue box, "I never said how sorry I am that I lost your child."

A long pause followed with the Tardis projecting comfort before he spoke through a watery, heartbroken smile. "She made us family, Old Girl. I know we already were, but she made us truly family."

He never went back to see if Anthony returned to New York and found the engraving.

**. . . . .**

After Manhattan, she had one last visit on her calendar: the anniversary of waking up in the Sisters hospital and finding her Dad and Mum. She thought about using it immediately and have the balm of being with them soothe the pain from New York.

But she changed her mind. She was going to need that comfort when she would meet the Doctor for the last time and having that hurt added to the one of losing her parents. So she saved that last visit to be the goodbye to everyone she held in her hearts.

Only she didn't come back from her meeting the Doctor for the last time. That last possible visit to her parents was never used.

Amy and Rory waited for her that day in 2012. River never missed the important days. Never. They started to call a dozen different times; a dozen different times they told themselves they were overreacting. She was River Song. She was _their_ daughter and had the Tardis in her; she made Daleks tremble and jumped off buildings. Things didn't happen to River that she didn't escape from sooner or later.

They picked at lunch and didn't even make anything to eat that night. When they couldn't take it anymore – because they knew, they _knew_ River would at least send them a note or call – they got a message from her saying she was coming over tomorrow and was that alright with them? They blew out a collective breath and teased each other about who had been more worried.

They didn't mention her being late for the anniversary because they figured she knew. She didn't mention not showing up the previous day because she was a different River.

So Rory and Amy never knew about the Library.

**. . . . .**

Strackman Lux and River's university put a memorial stone to _Professor River Song, for her great sacrifice_ by the Archeology campus.

But the Doctor treasured the memorial to her that spanned all the points in the history books, bearing art and prose for all she had done. He went back to the few places who didn't include her in their history and had them correct that mistake.

**. . . . .**

One of those corrections was the museum that held the final armour of the Last Centurion.

The updated display told how he had a daughter, with commissioned paintings of the smiling Centurion with tears in his eyes holding an infant in one; him in traditional Roman armour kissing the forehead of a young woman with braids, warm brown eyes a shade lighter than her skin, and a wicked smile; and the third portrait showing him with his grown daughter laughing together during sword lessons.

Historians feverishly searched for the identity of the Centurion's Daughter, puzzling over the different looks in the three portraits, and engaging in riot level debates over her similarity to River Song in the third painting.

The inscriptions for the three paintings were in Latin.

**. . . . .**

The display was in the Starship UK museum under the protection of Liz X. Next door was the display honouring Amy Pond.

Starship Scotland had an even larger one.

Side by side with the one of Jamie McCrimmon.

**. . . . .**

Starship Italy said they should have the Last Centurion exhibit since he was Roman. Liz X held up the documents giving the UK rights to his sword and armour, then gave them the British salute and told them to sod off.

There was a long exchange of rude gestures and angry words back and forth until everything settled down years later.

**. . . . .**

The Doctor also returned to Stormcage where River Song had served her sentences through generations of its guards. Generations more talked about her after she was gone, until she became a myth that survived long after the prison itself was shut down for a newer one. Prison guards after her would buck up someone who failed to do the impossible with, "Oi, it's not your fault. No one could have done it. You can't hold a Song."

Eventually, they used it even though they had no idea how it started as the line blurred between the expression and the woman who could walk through the prison walls like they weren't even there.

On some sad nights for quite awhile after she had died, the Doctor would slip quietly into her old cells and mimic her handwriting to scrawl on the walls "Miss me?" or "Hello, boys" with her signature or a little figure sketched below it.

_To freak people out._

The current prisoner would wake up and bellow for the guards.

Her myth grew.

**. . . . .**

As for his visits to the Library's orbit and her flourishing in its core...

Well, that's between her and him, eh?

**. . . . .**

The Tardis had a secret. She had grown a nodule not long ago in a remote room no one else knew existed. She grew it slowly and with the delicate artisan's touch of a glassblower during idle times, so she wasn't using energy the Doctor might need at an important moment. When she deemed it ready, she broke it off. It was still _of_ her, but it had to be separate.

River's coffin.

It had the same appearance and glow of the Tardis herself if the chameleon circuit was turned off, revealing who she was under her layer of the blue box.

Amy Pond carried Melody at the beginning of her life. The Tardis would be the mother that carried her at the end of that life.

**. . . . .**

The Tardis didn't care what anyone else thought. She still considered River a gift she and the Ponds had given each other. From the moment her own consciousness awakened and existed in all Time, she reveled in the Child that was her future, present, and past, and thanked the pretty one and the orangey girl who gave her such a precious gift. So she archived their things together: Rory's nursing bag and small med-pack; the prayer leaf Lorna Bucket gave Amy; River's utility belt and archeologist bag; Amy's diary (in both hers and Rory's handwriting) for their slim number of visits with their daughter, the dusty box of pictures and mementos from the Ponds' house including Rory's picture of young Melody, and the picture of Amy holding baby Melody.

River's diary of her relationship with the Doctor was stored with his elsewhere in the Tardis, for the day her Thief might be ready to look at it. That hadn't happened yet; he had only blindly retrieved it unable to look at it even for that brief time.

River's lab, her section of the library, and her room for those nights she didn't share with the Doctor were stored deep in the ship and kept exactly as she left them.

For herself, the only TT Capsule to have a child of flesh and blood, the Tardis mourned her loss by telling her sisters during their days while Gallifrey still lived. The other ships buzzed amongst themselves over such a thing even happening and they clamored for details. It only added to the buzz around her – the one who would steal/was stealing/stole a Time Lord, exploring the universe, being put in a human body; the one whose famous name of Tardis would become the name for them all ... of course she would have the flesh and blood child.

She shared the experience of River laughing and how it filled all the empty spaces; of the feel of her feet and fingertips as she went through the corridors, worked the controls, or puttered in her lab and library; of how she taught her child to fly and so many other things, including the exhilaration of the Vortex and traveling in it so naturally when you are already a part of it; of how her daughter would curl up under the console and they would just talk – actually fully and completely talk with one another. Sharing frustrations and bright laughter over their "beautiful idiot"; of how River once laughed that their chameleon circuits were both broken so they were happily stuck in these forms; or when her child hacked into the Justice Department's data to change the Tardis record from 'Listed as Stolen' to 'Confessed to Stealing a Time Lord'.

And the glorious moments when her child would leap into her maternal hold from somewhere in the universe, all vibrant light and energy, or beaten down, the Song muted, and needing her.

They would sing together, just like those moments of a developing Melody glowing golden in utero as she listened and moved to the Gallifreyan lullaby the ancient ship sang for her.

Then her sisters mourned with her over the point when the River would come no more, starting with the night of the Singing Towers when it is/would be/was the last time her child was with her. How River kissed her fingertips when asked and touched them to the heart of the Tardis before she unknowingly walked out the doors for the last time. How they were separated in the Library and didn't have a goodbye there; just the Tardis alone all those minutes, knowing what would happen, and then feeling that wonderful brightness that bonded them violently snuffed out. Gone. There was nothing she could do but wait as she always did until her Doctor came back, oblivious that she was in mourning.

Her sisters comforted her as best they could.

Just as her child comforted her in the loss of her sisters.


	4. Chapter 4: Honour Thy Father

Chapter 4 Honour Thy Father

Of course, River knew nothing about what would follow her own death, especially from where she stood on that last Father's Day centuries across time from Rory.

"Professor Song?"

She looked down to the brightly lit lecture stage where her fellow professor spotted her at the top of the audience steps. Some of her students attending the history class started out of their seats to help carry the large trunk in her hands. She shook her head. The weight was nothing to her enhanced strength. Even if were, she wouldn't let anyone else handle it.

"I'm sorry for the interruption, Professor Lessig. I have something for you and your students."

She spoke as she walked down the steps, well aware of everyone turning to look. The students murmured back and forth, wondering what she carried. So did the balding man at the podium. He cleared off the large table where a clutter of books and items had rested. She sat the trunk down in the now empty spot.

"What is it?" he asked.

She hesitated for one infinitesimal second, remembering her father's hands opening this lid. No one noticed; she could feel the collective, held breath in the room. She pulled the sword from its fitted cushion and took a step away from the other professor before lifting it in line with her body.

_His hand under her arm and at her back, correcting her stance slightly and then drawing her arm back so the sword was raised by her head in a classic attack strike. He made a sound and when she looked over her shoulder, his eyes were warm and shined. Pride. "Good. Of course, I expect my heir to be good." The teasing switched out with a father's warning as he stopped speaking in Latin for English. "Just because I'm showing you this, River, doesn't mean you have to actually use it. Be careful!"_

"This is the weapon and armour of the Last Centurion."

The Professor looked like he'd faint. Quite a few students looked ready to join him while others immediately poised as if someone held out the last bit of water available to desert travelers. Lessig drew a hand across his shining pate into what was left of his light brown hair. His eyes went from the sword to her and then back.

She rolled the blade slightly in her palm so the lights shined on its mettle. "The sword is authentic." Because the Doctor stopped in Ancient Rome for Rory to pick one out to his liking during their hunt for her and her mother. "I authenticated it myself and had three other leading experts verify my conclusions. You'll find the certificates in the case. The body armour, however, isn't."

She picked up his chest piece with her free hand, letting the sword drop to her side. "He designed this modified version on the classic form. He made it for a mission where he went after his wife when she was taken." _And his daughter_ stayed unsaid. "The leather is lighter, more quiet, but less protection than the standard metal."

She showed Professor Lessig where she stored the lecture she had planned to give when her parents would come see her teach. (_Amy no longer able to contain herself, standing up and announcing "Oi! I'm her mum!" Telling her students how horrible a student she had been growing up, the scourge of teachers throughout Leadworth, while Rory buried his head in a hand mumbling, "We came to listen!"_ _And the Doctor... _River had been ready to set her husband straight on her chosen profession with historical points in his life where he used relics and ruins to tell him about people. She had taken those images, like those of the Sevateem, out of this lecture.) The legend of the Last Centurion awoke on the large screens around the lecture stage. Art, prose, historical accounts... Rory. Her father.

His face looked down on her.… when this lecture was supposed to surprise him in the audience...

She put the chest piece back in the trunk. "You'll find everything you need to know in this research. Enjoy." She started returning the sword to the trunk when the archeologist in her overrode the daughter. With a small smile, she said, "You'll notice I'm not wearing gloves while I'm handling these objects. I know some of my students are out there. What will you do when Professor Lessig lets you up here?"

"Wear gloves."

River smiled to herself as she identified Fozh, one of her undergrad students and a native of the genderless Ogzha, speaking through the translation module on zher chest. She imagined Fozh's hexagonal eyes twisting and turning on zher eyestalk. "Because?"

"Do as you say, not what you do."

"Thank you, Mx Fozh."

Professor Lessig stopped her before she left the stage. "Professor Song... thank you for this. Are you certain you wouldn't rather present this yourself? You've done all this work."

It would be horrible to give this lecture now when her parents weren't here. "No, please. You do it. I insist."

"Then thank you, although that barely covers what you're giving me. It's an amazing opportunity."

"And?" She knew there was an 'and'.

They were such a contrast. Lessig looked exactly like the professor stereotype: brown sweater, nondescript brown trousers, a bit paunchy, staid presence. River was not any of that. "You know I'd be derelict if I didn't mention... this should be in a museum for everyone's benefit and study. It's The Last Centurion, Professor."

He was more than that, but no one here knew it but her and she planned to keep it that way. She had removed her father's nursing bag and anything else that belonged to Rory Williams, the man outside of the Centurion. If anyone made the connection between them from the recorded history where he had traveled with the Doctor, then they were free to do so. His daughter would keep him private to the people who loved him best. The way he had wanted to live.

"After I'm gone," she promised and left with a word to pick up the trunk and her lecture at the end of the day.

People scrambled to their feet and whatever else they used for propulsion as they made a beeline to the stage. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat and pictured Rory in that little pub where a younger her had a record of his life delivered to his dad.

Happy Father's Day.

_Love you, Dad._

She felt the Tardis calling her and she rushed up the remaining steps out the lecture room into the corridor. Now the engines' sound bounced off the walls and the wind picking up blew items up and down the hall as well as River's curls across her face. She yanked them out of the way and unconsciously held her breath, waiting for that blue door to open.

He bounced out in his eleventh form, all energy and big smiles. His grin grew when he saw her, as he spun around and swept his hands down his outfit. So, this was the first time for him that he wore this suit around her. The overall effect reminded her of of his third incarnation, even without the velvet, especially the bowtie and the purple of his coat; its length and cut, however, with a patternless waistcoat were much more his Fourth's and she swore he'd been wearing the same boots of that incarnation this whole time. Just like she swore the braces, especially the dark ones, were the same ones from his Second regeneration.

She had seen him like this before, hair all slicked back to keep the quiff more in line, and the fact he wore it and thought this was her first time pinpointed where he was in their timestreams. She didn't need to pull out her diary and ask. He was a bit further from Manhattan than she was, but not too much.

"Hi, honey. Did I surprise you?"

Yes, he had surprised her. She had been afraid of a much younger version. "Hello, Sweetie."

He glanced around the corridor, swept his eyes over her, and pinpointed her time as she had with his. "Ah! The professor's job, is it? Teaching new generations how to spread gossip about the past?"

"Something along those lines," she answered as he walked by. He slipped an arm around her waist and kissed her as he passed.

"And what's today's topic?" he asked at the lecture hall door. "Hmm? What are they getting wrong at the moment?"

"Doctor-!"

Too late. He pushed open the door a bit and voices raised in excitement flowed out.

"Can you zoom in on that second screen, Professor? Where it says the Centurion-"

"These details spread out from his legend from the 21st Century to past ours! How-"

"The Last Centurion had a wife? She said he was rescuing his wife. Who-"

"Rory," the Doctor whispered and leaned back against the door jam. The door closed without a sound.

The fact that he didn't look back at her to share how this hurt both of them told her Manhattan was still only about him. His damaged hearts alone.

Was it wrong of her to wish for a husband further along in his timeline? She was grateful, of course, to see a Doctor who knew he was her husband; not that Asgard with the tenth Doctor hadn't been so lovely, because after all, he was still the Doctor. But right now, a husband who remembered he had given her his name – a husband who remembered when she stumbled upon his baby cot and shared how she had lain in it too – a husband who knew Manhattan was about the both of them.

She stopped herself right there. She never thought she'd see a Doctor again who knew who she was to him, especially after Manhattan when she had to go. Because she must meet his younger versions and he must go meet hers. If she had stayed as they both wanted her to do, it would have destroyed their timelines, and hadn't he been the one to say not to rewrite their times together? Hadn't he already risked doing just that when he hadn't gone to her for years after they were married on top of the pyramid?

But here he was now and he'd been there in Manhattan. It felt so good to touch him and have the feel of his warm hand.

"No, my love." She replied in as much a whisper as his while slipped her fingers in between his own. "The Last Centurion, not Rory. Rory Williams is a... private subject."

She slowly rubbed her thumb along the back of his hand in soft, small comfort for them both. They stood that way for a moment, just quiet.

"River. Your grandparents." He paused. "They said they forgive me, River. Let me ask them for whatever you want from the house. You shouldn't have to steal –"

She bared her teeth in outrage. "_Steal_! So now it's stealing if I have my parents –"

The brief show of spirit died out sharply. The truth was she did have to slip into the house when Brian and Anthony weren't there to get the Centurion trunk and the few other things she had wanted. She had been surprised when her things weren't in her room and finally found the dusty boxes in storage that had originally been marked Melody, then Mels, and finally River. All the pictures that Amy used to have in frames and taped to the walls in collages were there, plus the baby picture of her holding Melody that River had gone back to Greystark Hall to get, wrapped with the prayer leaf that Amy used to carry with her. The top of the box had all the photos of the two of them with River plus the gifts she had given them. They must have packed it all up after they had gotten the news Amy couldn't have children.

She almost left them there because seeing everything they had of her put into storage was a terrible reminder of the time she had lost with them. But someone else would eventually find the boxes and it would raise questions no one could answer. So she stored them in the Tardis. One day she might be able to look at it all again.

The quiet was now awkward and he had dropped her hand. At last, he spoke to shatter the brittle silence.

"I have a new companion!" His voice was overly bright. "Clara. Wait until you meet her. She's amazing! Wait, have you met her?"

She smiled. "You know I can't answer that, Sweetie." She started towards the Tardis and he fell into place next to her.

"I swore Amy would never be replaced in my hearts. And then there was Clara! I gave her a Tardis key. It's best if she doesn't have to rely on me to let her in, what with all the running and all. Waiting for me could be dangerous."

She bit back from saying then why didn't he give _her_, his _wife_ and Child of the Tardis, a key? "I can see that." She certainly had almost been killed more than once waiting for him to her in to the Tardis. But she had his name, she _was_ his wife, and equally important, she was too tired to argue today.

Still, a key really would be helpful. Or he could tell the Tardis to let her in without one, as he could do.

"My Christmas adventures have really improved. No more Earth invasions - well, I suppose there's some of that, but Clara! And the time with Madge Arwell and her children during World War II. I told you about her. Shame you couldn't have met her."

He didn't pick up on how small and dim her smile was as she answered. "I did actually."

"You did? Brilliant, River!"

"Not so brilliant. I misunderstood you when you first told me about your time with her. I thought you were hinting I was supposed to be there, to give you the message to go see my parents and let them know you were alive."

"That's all right. You met Madge. I bet you got on splendid together. Did you talk about me?"

"Egotist!"

"River!"

"Yes, we did talk about you." But not in the way he thought. Not at all. Madge Arwell had slammed the door in her face, but not before she was pointedly told she couldn't be the Caretaker's wife because, "He said he had no family, so that certainly means he doesn't have a wife. And you can't be a friend of his because he said none of them would know he was here! So whatever you want with him, it's no good and I won't be a part of it!"

The slam punctuated the meeting perfectly. He had said he bared his hearts to Madge and his hearts had said she, his wife, didn't count as family or a friend to him.

But River was so tired and in no mood to go into it. Not today, especially not today. She had told her mother to never let the Doctor see the damage, and all of this was most definitely damage. "Madge certainly cares about you. She's very protective of you too."

He rocked on his feet while smiling into her face. "Not as much as you."

That brought on her smile. "No one more than me, my love. Maybe as much, but never more. Except for the Tardis of course."

The Tardis called her, the warm bright melody a touch of comfort and promise. She nearly ran the steps between them, but her feet were too weighted down for that. Her hands touched the perfect blue of blue doors and she was home.

The Doctor thought he could watch his Tardis and his River forever. He really couldn't since he couldn't stop moving for that long, but the feeling was there.

Light reflected off the white of the St. John's Ambulance logo and illuminated River. So smart of his ship to bring back the logo from his first incarnation. He loved the nostalgia of it. Still the same old Doctor and Tardis from the day they left Gallifrey together and both of them brand new.

The cozy thought was interrupted when the reflected light called attention to the dark smudges under River's eyes. What caused those? The lecture going on about Rory? Why would River even-

He glanced at his watch and then wet a finger, sensing the air.

Oh.

_That_ day.

They needed to go on an adventure. That's what River needed. Some exciting new place with beauties to behold and mystery all around them to figure out. And with the new desktop and new Companion, River wouldn't be reminded of Amy and Rory.

He swallowed, his throat working against the pain in a long, slow downward travel.

Only two adventures together, all of them with him: his friends, his Tardis, and his wife.

But:

His wife. Brilliant that, his having a wife – a _real_ wife – again.

She had missed those last years with them. She could have been with Brian and met dinosaurs, seen her grandfather and father side by side saving the day. Put Nefertiti in her place. Stood by his side in Mercy and kept him company in the lonely darkness as she always did. Her parents' anniversary... sitting on the couch on the family watching the telly... playing Wii. He bet River was fantastic at Wii; they could have been a team against her parents...

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "I needed that time with them, River."

"I never said you didn't, Sweetie."

"Okay. Right." He shifted around from one foot to another, but this time as he thought back, a slow smile warmed by the memories. "It was good spending all that time with them. I mean, I had for years, you know, the three of us on the Tardis and that was just the best, and then to be in their home with them everyday. Just being together doing day to day things like a family. They even said I had become like their adopted son and gave me my own roo –"

Gave him what had been her room.

Her fingers picked and ran across the Tardis door. "I'm sure that was wonderful." She turned her head and smiled. "Maybe you're the reason they adopted a boy."

He blinked before giving in and closing his eyes as that thought rushed like regenerative energy through him. "They could have named him after me," he teased weakly.

She smiled softly. "Doctor Williams? That wouldn't have been confusing at all."

He scratched his one cheek and then shifted his feet again. "He seems like a good man."

"Of course, he's their son. And he gave them everything they wanted. I can't thank him enough for that."

He elevated his fidgeting by trying to spin the sonic screwdriver in his trouser pocket, but it got hopelessly stuck. "Do you – do you have any time left with them?"

She had turned back to the Tardis and didn't look up this time. "One. I'm saving it. I thought I might wait for my anniversary next year. Something special for the last time."

"Which one. Mels or hospital?"

The anniversary of her finding them after searching for them for years or her waking up in the Sisters of the Infinite Schism and finding them at her side as her parents.

"The hospital."

It'd be special no matter when she went, because it'd be the last time. He hoped it would be give her everything she deserved.

The Tardis never told him about River changing her mind and waiting to use that final visit for the day she last saw him. Her Thief didn't need any more sad details.

He yanked the screwdriver out, tearing the trouser lining and shoved his hands back in his pockets. "When did you see them before... when was the last time you visited?"

"Byzantium." She gave a quiet, small laugh. "I knew it was the first time she met me, _this_ me, and I half-convinced myself it meant they would survive me. That I would never have to say goodbye, that you never meant I was _there_." He watched her jaw tighten. "Stupid and naïve, but it's amazing what we can convince ourselves is true."

She didn't say the _If we're desperate enough_.

"You took such good care of Amy when we were on the Byzantium. Better than I did."

She gave a breathy little laugh. "Well, they say you end up in a role reversal where you take care of your parents."

"And you got to see them with me."

"I did." She reached out and touched his bowtie. "All you younger versions together."

She was seeing his tenth incarnation now. He didn't want to think about that. He couldn't change all those times when he should have been better to her. He wished she never had to see eyes that didn't recognize her and held anything other than love.

He started crossing the distance between them. "Maybe if you –"

The Tardis swung open her other door, the one between he and River. It knocked him in the nose and sent him backwards a step.

He rubbed his nose. "Ow!"

If that was her attitude, why did his ship bring him here at all? He wasn't helping. In fact, he felt he was making things worse. His wife was leaning her head against the blue wood, her lips moving quietly as she talked to the Tardis who hummed faintly. He wouldn't even know it if he didn't feel the barest vibration. So, great, they were having some heart to heart talk while he –

Oh. Again.

The Tardis didn't bring _him_. She came to where _she_ was most needed.

He should leave. Go take a walk and let them alone, come back later after he found some trouble he could stir up.

He got a couple steps away when he stopped.

River was hurting. He had made himself a promise to be the husband that would be there when she was hurting. Let her be more important than himself, just as she did for him.

He turned around, walked back, and put his back against the box. The door that made a wall between he and his wife closed and he reached his hand back around the corner.

After a moment, River's fingers entwined with his.

"Oh. Forgive me." A rich warm voice suited for reading the most moving poetry interrupted them. Shakespeare would have loved him.

"No, it's fine," River said to a man who must be a colleague. The Doctor straightened when he saw Rory's trunk in the man's hands. "I would have come for it, Donald."

"My pleasure." He lifted up the trunk. "And truly my great honour."

She took it back from him and held it close to her body as she graciously answered the other professor. The Doctor waited for him to leave before he came to her side. She looked down at the trunk, lost in her own thoughts. He would ask what they were later, tell her she could open those walls she drew around her for protection because he would be her shield against the world.

He pressed against her and laid his head against hers. "They loved you, River."

"Yes, they did. For those couple of years, they were mine. They knew me and they were mine. ….It was... everything."


End file.
